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Chapter 3:
Life and Sex in the Womb
Please pick up the somatic at the
beginning and roll the engram.
-- L. Ron Hubbard {1}
The purpose of
Scientology "auditing" or "processing" is to help the preclear get rid
of his "engrams," which Scientologists say are a type of impression
imprinted on the protoplasm of the cell itself.
Hubbard believes that these engrams are stored in the "reactive mind"
(roughly comparable to Freud's unconscious) and that before a person can
solve his problems, the engram has to be refiled in the "analytic" mind
(in other words the conscious mind). By transferring the engrams in this
manner, a person is supposed to become aware of his problems and is
presumably able to resolve them.
These engrams are said to have been recorded on the cells during moments
of unconsciousness or extreme pain. In addition, they begin to record
not from the moment we were born, but from the moment we were conceived,
sometimes earlier.
Some Scientologists are able to remember being a sperm or even the egg
eagerly waiting to be met by the sperm. Thus it is obvious that
Scientologists believe that many of our problems started long before we
were born.
Hubbard's theory never makes it really clear, at least in a manner that
would be accepted by most medical doctors, exactly how engrams can be
planted before a foetus had developed a nervous system or the sense
organs with which to register an impression, or even how a person could
retain or "remember" verbal statements before he had command of a
language. Scientologists simply accept his theory on faith, that if a
husband beats his pregnant wife and shouts "take that" as he hits her, a
"take that" engram can be planted in the womb. Thus, when junior grows
up, he might react to this statement literally, and become a thief whose
goal is to "take that."
In fact, if you examine Hubbard's view of marital life as reflected in
the case studies of his first book, you discover that most fathers spent
a good portion of their marital lives giving engrams to their unborn
children by beating their wives while they were pregnant with junior or
while in the act of conceiving him. But the fathers weren't the only
villains.
Many of the mothers Hubbard depicted made Medea look like the Madonna.
When these mothers weren't being knocked up or knocked down by their
husbands, they were usually giving their unborn children engrams with AA
(Attempted Abortion). Hubbard wrote that "twenty or thirty abortion
attempts are not uncommon in the aberee," and there are so many
attempted abortions in Hubbard's case histories that it sometimes seems
to be a miracle that any of us got here at all.
Those children who did make it though, despite the attempted abortion,
suffered later in life, not only from the traces of whatever the mother
used to try to abort him -- usually knitting needles according to
Hubbard -- but because when he grew up, he was condemned to live with
murderers whom he knows reactively to be murderers through all of his
weak and helpless youth -- because he could "remember" the abortion
attempt.
Readers should not be alarmed if they are unable to remember their life
in the womb, or conception. The earliest a non-Scientologist can
remember, according to most doctors and psychiatrists, is approximately
eighteen months. Hubbard says that we can remember earlier, and one of
the reasons we think we can't is -- of course -- attempted abortion.
"The standard attempted abortion case nearly always has an infanthood
and childhood full of Mama assuring him that he cannot remember anything
when he was a baby. She doesn't want him to recall how handy she was, if
unsuccessful, in her efforts with various instruments. Possibly prenatal
memory itself would be just ordinary memory ... if this guilty
conscience in mother had not been rolling...."
Hubbard also said that another reason the mothers encouraged the child
either to forget or think they couldn't remember was that "Mama often
has had a couple of more men than Papa that Papa never knew about." He
also implied that this is why mothers might not want their children to
go into Dianetics, so that as early as Hubbard's first book, where this
appeared, Hubbard was saying that people who fought Dianetics had crimes
that they were trying to conceal -- a theme which later becomes almost
an obsession with him.
When Hubbard's mothers weren't trying to abort themselves, or being
beaten, they were often having affairs. This situation could also give
the unborn child an engram, especially if the child in the womb was
ultimately to be named after the father.
Hubbard believed that many of these unfaithful wives made unpleasant
remarks about their husbands to their lovers, and that junior, who was
being knocked practically unconscious in the womb by the sex act, would
"hear" these remarks and think they were aimed at him.
It is obvious that with all the lovers trysts, attempted abortions,
beatings, etc., life in the womb was no joy for junior. Hubbard wrote
that there were even more problems since there were "intestinal squeaks,
groans, flowing water, belches" all making continual sounds for the
foetus or embryo.
It was also quite tight in there, a situation which was aggravated if
the mother had high blood pressure. In addition, if the mother sneezed,
the "baby gets knocked unconscious." If the mother ran into a table,
"baby gets his head shoved in." If the mother was constipated, "baby in
an anxious effort gets squashed." If the mother took quinine --
presumably for an attempted abortion -- the child could have a ringing
sound in his ears throughout his life. And if the parents had
intercourse, the child had the additional sensation of being put through
a washing machine.
Not only was the foetus or embryo supposed to be aware of the sensation
of intercourse between his parents, or whomever, but the engram could
record what they were saying as well. The following case was allegedly
remembered by a preclear.
GIRL: I wonder what they're doing? (Then a pause.) I hear a squishing
sound! (Then a pause and embarrassment.) Oh!
AUDITOR: Recount the engram please.
GIRL: There's sort of a faint rhythm at first and then it gets faster. I
can hear breathing. Now it's beginning to bear down harder but a lot
less than it did the first time. Then it eases up and I hear my father's
voice: "Oh honey, I won't come in you now." ... and my mother [says] "I
don't want you in there at all then. You cold fish."
When the parents have intercourse, it not only has an adverse effect on
the child at the time, Hubbard claims, but the results could be quite
dangerous later in life. Hubbard says that many patients remember having
been raped by their fathers (Freud came across many such cases and
recognized them as fantasies). According to Hubbard, a preclear who
remembers being raped by her father may be right, only she may have been
in the womb at the time.
To show us how bad life in the womb really was, Hubbard tells us the
story of a man who "had passed for `normal' for thirty-six years of his
life." Through Dianetics treatment, they discovered that while the man's
mother was pregnant with him, she had had intercourse seventy-six times
with her husband (who was sometimes drunk) and her lover ("all painful
because of enthusiasm of lover"). In addition, she masturbated
eighty-one times ("with fingers, jolting and injuring with orgasm"), and
douched on twenty-two separate occasions.
Like most of the other mothers, she also tried AA (Attempted Abortion)
with twenty-two surgical abortions, a couple of home-made jobs with
paste and strong lysol, a few desperate attempts by jumping off a box,
and on another occasion by having her husband sit on her stomach.
In addition, she was constipated fifty-two times, had three colds, one
case of grippe, one hangover, thirty-three cases of morning sickness,
thirty-eight fights (presumably with her husband) which led to three
falls, five incidents of the hiccups, eighteen various accidents and
collisions, nineteen visits to the doctor, premature labor pains and
ultimately twenty-nine hours of labor. And to top it all off, she talked
to herself, which Hubbard says gave the man even more engrams to work
on. Hubbard tells us that this man who had had all these awful things
happen to him while in the womb, took 500 hours to cure. Hubbard also
said he picked the case because it contained "the usual problems."
It would seem that the engram sees all, hears all, and registers
everything, but sometimes it is incorrect. One auditor reported that a
rash on the backside of his preclear -- and it was not stated how the
auditor found out about that rash -- started when the preclear was in
the womb and his mother frequently asked for an aspirin. The engram was
said to have accidentally misrecorded this as "ass burn."{2}
Ira Wallach, who wrote a book called Hopalong-Freud, poked fun at these
theories in a special chapter he devoted to "Diapetics."
Picture the mind as a refrigerator (gas or electric). Now diapetics
demonstrates that part of the mind retains concepts not available for
immediate use or analysis. These concepts have been frozen in the mind's
ice tray. In another section of the mind we find the crisper. The
crisper keeps ideas and concepts fresh, edible, and not too damp. (Green
ideas should be left on the window sill for a few days.) Controlling
both the ice tray and the crisper is the defroster.{3}
Wallach then poked fun at the "clear" -- a Scientologist who has gotten
rid of his engrams and problems -- calling him a "crisp." He called the
"preclear" a "precrisp."
In such a patient you will find the ice tray empty, the crisper full,
and a dozen eggs behind the can of peaches. He is what we call in
diapetics, a crisp.... People who have not undergone therapy are
precrisps ... a person whose ice cubes have melted to the extent that
they can be moved without resort to hammer and screwdriver.... Thus we
can see at a glance that Diapetics realizes a centuries-old dream: it is
a science that explains the mind.
_______________
Notes:
{1} Everything including all quotes [6]
{2} exceptions are story of rash on backside [264]
{3} quote from Diapetics [265]
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