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Chapter 18:
The E-Meter
The E-meter is never wrong. It
sees all; it knows all. It tells everything.
-- L. Ron Hubbard {1}
An important part
of a Scientology auditing session is the E-meter. It lures people into
Scientology and, for some, gives a scientific basis to the methods used.
Scientologists are accepted or expelled according to its revelations. It
helps to extract the Scientologists' most intimate secrets and
confessions, including those of a sexual and criminal nature. It helps
to determine the length, intensity and nature of the auditing session.
It helps to determine the date and details of their present problems and
their past lives.
In fact, the E-meter often determines whether they have had past lives.
If someone believes he hasn't lived before, but the E-meter does not
respond to a date in the person's current life, then he is led to
believe that the event must have happened in a past one.
The E-meter or electroencephaloneuromentimograph is about ten inches by
six inches by two inches{2} and its appearance was described by one
reporter as a "cross between a car speedometer and a practical joker's
electric shock machine."{3} Hubbard usually refers to its inventor as "Mathison"
and Scientologists will tell you it was invented by Olin Mathison;{4}
actually it was invented by Volney Mathison,{5} a chiropractor.{6}
To buy the machine at an Org costs about $162; in 1963 the government
determined that it cost only $12.50 to make, and that the Scientology
organizations bought it wholesale for $47.{7}
Even at this price, the Scientologists and Hubbard will tell you that
it's infallible. It is said that it never fails to pick out the date on
which an incident occurred. Scientologists will tell you to the exact
second when something happened to them a trillions of years ago.
Apparently, it is less than perfect in picking dates in their current
life. Its failure in this task is what caused author Alan Levy, who
wrote a piece on Scientology for Life magazine, to become disenchanted
with the organization. (Along with the fact that his New York contract
said Grades V-VII would cost him $390 at Saint Hill, but when he got
there he discovered it was $3,150 "plus living expenses.")
Alan Levy's problems in Scientology started when he was told to use the
E-meter to locate the date on which he had a fight with his wife.
(Present one, current life.) Without the meter, he knew the year was
1958, and that it was a Sunday morning in March.
Although he suggested to his auditor that they consult a calendar, he
was told, "There's no need for that.... The E-meter will find out for
us." The meter "found out" that the fight occurred on March 18. But when
Alan Levy checked an almanac at a bookstore in East Grinstead, he
discovered that March 18, 1958 fell on Tuesday, not Sunday.
It seems pathetic to me still, and
terribly precarious, that my failure to perform so simple a journalistic
chore -- under other circumstances I would have automatically looked up
the date -- could have kept me half tied to Scientology, the
deep-probing auditing sessions and the damned E-meter.... I am sure that
among the millions of words ... [Hubbard] has written, there are some to
convince me that the engram I unlocked did happen on a Tuesday -- in
another life -- or that March 18 did fall on a Sunday when I was in the
womb. But thankfully it no longer matters.
A number of
government witnesses in the Food and Drug Administration's case against
the meter also agreed that its functioning was considerably less than
perfect. George Montgomery, Chief of the Measurement Engineering
Division of the National Bureau of Standards, and Dr. John I. Lacey,
Chairman of the Department of Psychophysiology and Neurophysiology at
Fels Research Institute in Yellow Springs, stated that the E-meter
"failed to meet the commonly accepted criterion by which such an
instrument is judged."
This was because:{8}
-
The E-meter
has no device to control the constancy of current.
-
Holding a can
in the hand permits great variations in the area of the skin in
contact with the metal electrodes, and would allow great variation
in the amount of actively sweaty tissue that is in contact with it.
-
The instrument
is subject to polarization.
-
It is not a
quantitative instrument due to uncontrollable variations in skin
contact and current.
These experts also
explained that the machine was not really a measure of skin resistance
at all, but partially a reading of how firmly the individual was
grasping the can; if the person squeezed the can, there was more
contact, and apparent skin resistance would drop. If he held the cans
loosely, the apparent skin resistance would simply increase.
Scientologists, on the other hand, claim that the E-meter is so
sensitive that it will react not only when a person is holding onto it,
but also when it is placed on a tomato -- garden variety that is. While
some people would view this as an argument against the meter,
Scientologists feel that this proves its validity and that it also
supports their hypothesis that plants have feelings like humans.{9}
Scientologists have admirably gone to the trouble to research a number
of experiments in this field and have presented them to the public in
their newspapers and press releases.{10} These experiments were as
follows:
-
Dr. Erwin
Kapphan, in Zurich, "using a sensitive version of the skin
galvanometer" ("similar to the E-meter used in Scientology
confessionals" said the press release) showed that a tomato, when
pierced with a nail, showed "definite emotional anxiety reactions"
similar to those of humans. Kapphan also said that "plants only
catch a disease or blight if they are already thinking of dying."
-
Dr. Bernard
Grad, at McGill University in Montreal, conducted the experiments
which showed that plants fertilized by a solution that had been
given a flow of attention by a well-known faith healer with
acknowledged extrasensory powers grew significantly faster and
bigger than other plants.
-
Dr. Rex
Standord, of Duke University showed that plants which are shown
love, affection and lots of warm attention grow "demonstrably faster
and bigger."
The press release
contained no information about the statistical levels of significance of
these experiments, or even how the experiments were carried out (for
example, how did they give "love" or a "flow of attention" to a plant?)
nor how the results were analyzed (how does a tomato show "definite
emotional anxiety reactions"? etc.) They simply stated, in a rather
unscientific but sincere manner, that three experiments proved beyond
doubt that Hubbard's theory (and by extension, the E-meter) was valid.
"After ten years of ridicule for his theory ... L. Ron Hubbard has
finally been vindicated ... totally validated ... it was about
time."{11}
The reader may
decide for himself whether the E-meter proves that plants feel pain,
have emotional anxiety reactions, grow faster when given a flow of
attention by a faith healer, etc., -- or whether to accept the word of
the chairman of the Department of Psychophysiology and Neurophysiology
at one institute and the Chief of the Medical Engineering Division that
the E-meter is not an accurate instrument for measuring the flow of
electricity.
But if you choose
the latter, just remember that you cannot argue your position with the
Scientologists. They claim that the E-meter registers the thetan, which
they believe may have an electrical voltage,{12} and since no
non-Scientologist has ever seen a thetan, much less checked it for
electricity, how can anyone possibly disprove this theory?
_______________
Notes:
{1} first quote [7]
{2} size of meter [261]
{3} car speedometer [202]
{4} Olin Mathison [136, 30, 277]
{5} Volney Mathison [254]
{6} chiropractor [277]
{7} cost of meter really [254, 255]
{8} gov & Dr.'s claims against E-meter [254]
{9} plants have feelings [65a]
{10} 3 experiments [166, 57]
{11} Scientology statement about Hubbard validation [66]
{12} electrical flow of thetan [261]
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