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Chapter 17:
The Secret Scientology Sessions
In Dianetics, today's obvious
nervous breakdown is tomorrow's most cheerful being.
-- L. Ron Hubbard {1}
Scientology is
perhaps a religion, is probably a philosophy, is definitely a business,
is potentially a political force, and is also a form of therapy, or as
they call it now, pastoral counseling. Most people do not realize this,
since the Scientologists draw attention only to the idea that they are a
religion and a philosophy. Thus, they have been able to keep the public
in the dark about what is happening -- and they have also been largely
able to avoid public outcry.
Scientologists have devised a series of methods that they believe can
and will save this "enturbulated" world. Some of their practices --
those that have been widely criticized, such as disconnecting,
suppressives, investigations -- are based on their belief that anyone
who questions, criticizes or tries to stop Scientology from utilizing
these methods is harming not only themselves but the world.
Scientologists try to keep their methods of pastoral counseling a very
strict secret. While this shields them from criticism, it also makes
doctors doubtful as to its efficacy. "Suppose Newton had founded a
Church of Newtonian physics and refused to show his formula to anyone
who doubted the tenets of Newtonian physics?" wrote William
Burroughs.{2} (In an earlier stage, when Burroughs was apparently more
enchanted with Scientology, he wrote "There is nothing secret about
Scientology, no talk of initiates, secret doctrines or hidden
knowledge."{3}) But only someone who takes advanced Scientology courses
or "grades" can find out what Scientology methods are.
If any Scientologist divulges these secrets after he takes the courses,
he is subject to expulsion. But even though he doesn't know what the
courses are until he takes them, he must agree that they are correct in
advance and cannot question them. "It's like a physicist saying `you
can't see my formulae unless you first agree that they are correct sight
unseen,' " said Burroughs.{4}
Some of these secret sessions are done with the E-meter, although other
sessions consist of a series of exercises to "raise the preclear's
ability." When working with the meter, the auditor may first show the
preclear the auditing room and ask if there is anything about it that
upsets him.{5} The preclear may also be told to remove his watch and
wedding ring to prevent interference by outside metals.{6} Then the
auditor and preclear face each other in chairs, with the E-meter on a
table between them.
The auditor watches the needle of the meter, and if it reacts in a
manner that he believes indicates that an engram is present, the auditor
repeats the question until the needle "floats," which presumably means
that the engram has been "erased."{7} The preclear, who cannot see the
dials, does not have to accept the word of the auditor to determine
whether an engram is really gone. Hubbard stated that when a patient
succeeds in erasing an engram, he will feel a sense of wild elation --
which explains, perhaps, why when one Scientologist got rid of an engram,
he laughed for two days without stopping.{8}
During these sessions, the auditor does not tell the preclear to free
associate, as is done in psychoanalysis, but rather he is told to return
to a specific incident, say one that caused grief, anger, fear,
humiliation. The preclear then tries to determine the date of the
incident, and if he cannot, picks an approximate date and keeps reeling
off dates until the E-meter reacts.{9}
Once the preclear has found the date, he must then go to the beginning
of the incident and tell the entire story, repeating it many times until
all the details become clear.{10} By the end of that time, the story
supposedly loses its emotional charge and is no longer a source of
problems or pain.
At the end of each session, the preclear may be made to focus his
attention on five or six objects in the room, presumably to bring him
back to reality, before he is permitted to leave.{11} Some sessions end
more formally with the auditor saying, "Tell me I am no longer auditing
you," at which point the preclear says, "You are no longer auditing
me."{12}
If during these sessions a preclear has a particular problem he wishes
to discuss, he is permitted to talk about it but only briefly. Then,
instead of working on it, he may be told to invent a problem of
comparable magnitude, to lie about the problem he has,{13} or even to
invent a worse problem.{14}
There is a strong tendency during these sessions not to talk about
present problems at all. For example, Hubbard wrote the following to
show auditors what to do if the preclear had what they call a
"present-time" problem.
AUDITOR: What do you think is
wrong with you?
PRECLEAR: I'm impatient.
AUDITOR: Can you think of someone who's impatient?
PRECLEAR: My father.
AUDITOR: O.K. We'll run a father.{15}
But most of these
sessions are devoted to past-time incidents or even past-life incidents.
The preclear, while holding onto the cans of the E-meter, will be made
to answer two or three questions asked repeatedly during the auditing
session. For example, several sessions may be devoted to alternating
commands, like "recall something real," "recall a communication," and
"recall an emotion."
In other sessions they may be told to "recall a loss," "recall a
misemotion," "tell me a problem," "tell me a solution," or "What have
you said?", "What have you done?", "What are you willing to tell me
about?", "What are you willing to tell me about it?", "What is the
problem?", "What is the solution?", "What have you done?", and "What
haven't you said?"{16}
In other sessions, the person has been asked questions or ordered to do
things that to an outsider seem to make far less sense, for example to
"not know" something, to put things in the wrong time and place, and
even to deny the existence of objects around him, so that portions of
the environment, such as the walls or the door have disappeared in his
mind.{17} The preclear has also had to answer such questions as "Who
isn't here?", "What aren't you thinking?", "Where don't you have a
headache?", "Have you a headache in last week?", "Was your body in 1210
while you were going to college in 1940?"
Many Scientology sessions are devoted entirely to exercises guaranteed
to raise the preclear's "ability."
One series of exercises may be done outside of the auditing room. For
example, Scientologists have ordered an unconscious person, or a new
born baby to "Lie in bed. Thank you."{18} They once reported doing this
for several hours to an unconscious Scientologist, until they were
kicked out of the hospital.{19} (The patient later died.)
The reason for this seemingly strange exercise is twofold. While it may
seem odd to be telling something to an unconscious person, they believe
the thetan is always conscious and the person is thus able to hear it.
Secondly, one of the principles of auditing is to find something a
preclear can do and then better that ability -- and obviously an
unconscious person or baby is able to lie in a bed. Hubbard also wrote
that he once cured a drunk on this principle -- he had him invent new
ways to get drunk!{20}
The first Scientology course for $15 consists of two days or four
evenings of the following exercises or "Training Routines" or T.R.'s, as
they call them there. In the first T.R., "Confrontation," two
Scientologists sit a few feet apart and simply stare in each others'
eyes without moving, twitching, blinking, giggling, sighing, fidgeting,
for a minimum of an hour.{21} (It is this exercise that helps
Scientologists learn how to stare intensely at others.)
The second T.R. is called "Bull Baiting" and it is somewhat similar; one
Scientologist again stares directly at the other without moving, only
this time the other partner tries to make the immobile one "flinch" or
react by insulting him, humoring him, taunting him, or leading him on --
usually about his physical flaws or sexual problems.
In a third T.R., called "Dear Alice" one Scientologist keeps repeating
lines from Alice in Wonderland while his partner "acknowledges him."
For example, one asks "Do cats eat bats?", or says "Imperial
Fiddlesticks" and the other says "thank you" or "groovy." (It is said
that in one eastern city, they decided to send an undercover policeman
to investigate Scientology. The policeman spent several days repeating
lines from Alice in Wonderland and being thanked for it.{22})
In two other T.R's, one Scientologist keeps asking his partner "Do fish
swim?" or "Do birds fly?" while the partner tries to make him "flinch"
or become distracted as he did in the "Bull Baiting." For example:
Student: Do fish swim?
Coach: Yes.
Student: Good.
Coach: Do fish swim?
Student: Aren't you hungry?
Coach: Yes.
Student: [You] flunk[ed]
While the purpose
of these exercises may be elusive, they are actually supposed to teach
someone to get commands across naturally, to get the answer to the
question that he wants, to ask questions in a fresh manner, and not to
start a second question until the first has been answered, etc.{23}
During a weekend I spent researching Scientology, I did these five
exercises. I certainly admire the amazing perseverance of Scientologists
who do these Training Routines since they are unbelievably tiring and
boring. "Confrontation," for example is a nightmare. If done correctly,
without blinking or thinking or anything, it induces hallucinations.
When I had to do it, my first reaction upon staring at my partner was to
laugh, but within a few minutes I really wanted to cry. Everything was
itching everyplace. My muscles kept twitching while the rest of my body
felt stiffer than the wooden chair I was on. After a while, my eyes
started to blur, and then so did my mind, and I watched in horror as my
partner turned into a breathing Rorschach card. His eyes, eyelashes and
brows met, his nostrils merged and became a cruel, flaring cavern in the
center of his face, and the shadows cast by this disfigured nose gave
his entire face a sinister and terrifying quality.
"Bull Baiting" was not much better. I was first assisted to make someone
else "flinch," but I was the one who flinched the minute I laid my eyes
on him. There was nothing I couldn't insult him about -- from the top of
his too-tiny head to the bottom of his hundred pound five-foot frame. He
had a Pinocchio-type nose, closely set black beady eyes, parched thin
lips, large red ears, a scattering of post-adolescent pimples, and a
chin like a slightly used rapier.
I couldn't bear to insult someone as unattractive as he, who must have
been hurt often throughout his life. But the Scientology leader and the
assistant of the group both put me down for this. They also showed me
how to do it: the leader described each of the boy's faults in what must
have been agonizing detail; the assistant, however, told him how
handsome, tall, clear-skinned etc. he was.
When it was my turn to be baited, I was naturally braced for the worst.
But to my surprise, instead of picking on my faults or flaws, or
"buttons" as they called it there, my male partners tried to make me
"flinch" by talking about sex, and their incredible obscenities and
explicit descriptions of the amazing variety of perversions they wanted
to practice with me made them sound disgustingly similar to an obscene
telephone caller without the benefit of a telephone.
The Scientologists also used the bull baiting exercise to find out if I
was a writer. They sent an advanced Scientologist to bull-bait me. While
at first he chatted aimlessly, all of a sudden, he thrust his face a
quarter of an inch from mine, looked directly into my eyes, and said,
ominously, "We've been watching you since you first came in here. We
think you're really a writer." He kept questioning me repeatedly, while
all the color drained my face. So I purposely threw my eyes slightly out
of focus, fixed my gaze an inch above his eyes, and concentrated
intently on what it would be like to kiss him, hoping this would imbue
my features with an acceptable amount of disgust and despair and I
wouldn't "flinch."
It worked and he finally changed the subject, like the others, to sex.
He was so filthy, he made the obscenities of the earlier "bull baiters"
sound as if they'd come from pre-pubescent children. His final statement
was to ask me whether I'd like to join the Scientologists "in some of
the great orgies we have over here on Tuesday [or Thursday, I forget]
night." I'm sorry I can't report to you whether that last statement is
true or not, because I wanted to get out of that world as fast as I
could, and had no desire to attend an "org-y" at the org.
In all fairness, however, I must say that these TRs, however tedious (I
mean how often can you ask someone "do birds fly?" without feeling that
you're about ready to also?) did have some benefit for me. They helped
teach me to talk with my voice and not with my hands, to acknowledge
somebody's statements before I rambled on with my own, to look people
straight in the eye, and to be more persistent with someone when I
wanted to get an answer from him. And it is probably not the fault of
Scientology but my own incorrigibility that none of these effects lasted
five minutes past that Scientology weekend.
The relation between the exercise and its purpose is a bit more obscure
in other sessions.
In one exercise called "Holding Corners," the person is supposed to
visualize the two corners of the room and then "hold them" there,
thinking of nothing else.{24} For some reason, this is supposed to make
you act younger. Another exercise consists of "confronting" various
parts of the body:
Auditor: What part of that body
can you confront?
Preclear: The elbow.
Auditor: What part of that elbow can you confront?
Preclear: The wrist.
Auditor: Thank you.{25}
Many Scientology
exercises consist of hours and hours of repetitive commands, not only
like the above, but like the following. The auditor says to the preclear:
Do you see that book?
Walk over to it.
Pick it up.
Not know something about its color.
Not know something about its temperature.
Not know something about its weight.
Do you see that bottle?
Walk over to it.
Pick it up.
Not know something about its color.
Not know something about its temperature.
Not know something about its weight.
Do you see that book? Etc.{26}
Hubbard said the
above should be done "without ... lag, without protest, without apathy,
but only cheerfulness, each time seeing the items newly."{27} He also
said it was better to run this consecutively for several hours, rather
than run it a short time for several days. One preclear was run for nine
hours on the above without any breaks!{28}
Another Scientology exercise is called "S.C.S." (Stop, Change, Start).
Most Scientology courses are given on levels, and in the beginning of
S.C.S., the preclear must move small objects around a table, stop them,
change their direction, etc., "quickly and accurately without protest"
at the auditor's command.{29} On higher levels, a person is commanded to
get out of his body, since Scientologists believe that the thetan or
spirit can function apart from the body.
To accomplish this, the preclear is first told to "be three feet in back
of your head" and then told to be in more and more difficult places
"until he can sit in the center of the sun."{30} This exercise was
severely criticized by the Australian Inquiry, and in 1965, the
Scientologists told them that it was no longer being run. (However, in
1970, a book was for sale at the Washington D.C. Org telling auditors
about S.C.S.)
It has been criticized because its effects can be devastating. Hubbard
wrote that "If a preclear is about to fly out of his head he'll fly out
of his head on S.C.S. If he does fly out of his head on S.C.S. or on any
other process, you, of course, continue the process."{31} He also wrote
of S.C.S. that if a preclear suddenly "flies to pieces," started "flip
flopping" and had to be picked up off the floor, etc., that the auditor
should immediately get him back on to his feet and into the session.
"This is no time for you to be changing processes simply because a
preclear collapses," he wrote.
All these exercises, and even E-meter sessions for recounting incidents
in the real or imagined past, can be extremely tiring and difficult.
Some people even think it is dangerous. The Australian Report commented
on this as follows:
... during this, the preclear is
very frequently experiencing mental torture, which shows itself in
contorted and flushed features, tears, moaning, inability to speak,
apparent deafness, nausea, dizziness, sensations of pain, coma and
unconsciousness. One witness said that he almost killed his auditor, a
close personal friend, who was questioning him about withholds
[non-disclosed items] he had as to "sexy thoughts" concerning a female
staff member.... Sometimes preclears are so distraught that they scream,
develop murderous feelings, have bouts of anger, grief and morbid
feelings and thoughts; their sexual passions are aroused, they act
insanely, laugh hysterically and engage in other hysterical behavior;
they become violent and try to escape and have to be restrained.... In
Scientology parlance, when such manifestations as these occur, the
preclear is being "restimulated"; in fact, he is being debased and
mentally crippled.{32}
Hubbard was aware
that a preclear might have these reactions, but warned auditors to
continue nonetheless. Hubbard said that if a preclear begged his auditor
not to make him talk about someone's death "that is the first engram he
should get."{33} Hubbard wrote:
.. when the preclear is apparently
in the most intense pain ... you must calmly continue to run the
incident, asking for any phrases connected with the incident, and
picking up all sounds, sense of touch, and kinesthesia as they
appear.... And then, when the incident seems to be over, and the pain
has subsided, command the somatic strip to go to the beginning of the
incident and roll it again! ... Pay no attention to any efforts he may
make to avoid going through a second or third time.{34}
Perhaps it is not
surprising that S.C.S. has sometimes been given as punishment -- and one
person said he had been "sentenced" to S.C.S. for twenty-five hours for
some infraction.{35}
The Australian Report devoted an entire chapter to another danger they
saw in these sessions -- hypnosis. They concluded that these various
exercises were a type of hypnosis. To support their hypothesis, they
listed every aspect of the Scientology auditing session along with its
hypnotic counterpart. They also mentioned the fact that Hubbard admits
he was "schooled in hypnotism and mysticism" although Hubbard claims he
doesn't use hypnotic techniques.
The Australian Report concluded that Hubbard does use hypnotic
techniques but that he has simply changed the name of various hypnotic
phenomena to names of his own invention. The report pointed out that it
was a common practice for Scientology auditors to ask the preclear at
the end of the session whether he had achieved his goals and was
satisfied with that session.
Since they believed that the auditor was asking these questions when the
preclear was coming out of a "hypnotic trance," while the "hypnotic
rapport" with the auditor was in effect, the post hypnotic suggestions
helped the preclear to believe that the goals had been obtained and that
the session was successful. After the session was over, the "suggestion"
that the session was a success could still persist. The Scientologists
believe these exercises have helped them, while the Australian Inquiry
concluded they've been used to hypnotize them.{36}
_______________
Notes:
{1} first quote [6]
{2} quote by Burroughs on secrecy & Newton [187]
{3} quote by Burroughs on nonsecrecy [130a]
{4} must be Scientologist to know what happens, etc.; quote on physicist
[187]
{5} showing preclear room [130a, 261]
{6} removing ring [130a, 139]
{7} needle floats [130a]
{8} man who laughed for two days [6]
{9} remember grief anger; get date [130a]
{10} repeat story from beginning [6, 103a]
{11} focus on objects [261]
{12} "tell me I am no longer auditing you" [261]
{13} problems of comparable magnitude or lie about it [158]
{14} invent worse problem [16]
{15} running a father [20]
{16} Scientology questions [14, 139]
{17} putting things in wrong time or place [252]
{18} Lie in bed; raise abilities [16]
{19} kicked out of hospital [36]
{20} drunk helped [16]
{21} exercises in first course [111, 178]
{22} policeman in Scientology [142]
{23} purpose of exercises [111, 277]
{24} holding corners [142]
{25} confronting elbow [14]
{26} book and bottle [261]
{27} Hubbard quote on book and bottle [272]
{28} persons run for 9 hours [261]
{29} SCS move objects [158]
{30} get in back of head and sun [261]
{31} Hubbard quotes on SCS [16]
{32} Australian Report opinion of treatment [261]
{33} Hubbard says talk about death [6]
{34} Hubbard quote on intense pain [4]
{35} person sentenced to SCS [261]
{36} Hubbard studied hypnotism; Scientology is hypnotism & post hypnotic
suggestion [261]
Extraneous citation notes:
{37} able more able [102]
{38} raise abilities [255]
{39} lit claims to cure [261]
{40} Vitamin E [229]
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