From: Antony Phillips <ivy@post8.tele.dk>
Date: 8 May 2000 14:58:18 -0400

"MAY 9 DAY. On this day in 1950, the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This date is celebrated by all Churches and Missions internationally, as it is accepted as THE founding date of Dianetics and Scientology, and tributes to the founder are paid in all Scientology organizations."

That is an extract from "What is Scientology?" published in 1978 by Church of Scientology of California in Los Angeles, USA, and in all other countries by AOSH DK Publications Department A/S in Denmark..

Despite the fact that it ignores Nordenholz publication of the book "Scientologie" in 1934, some of us outside the control area of the Church also remember that day 50 years ago. The magazine "International Viewpoints" has two commemorative issues, one of which is recently published, the second is due in August. To celebrate a bit here on a.c.t. we are publishing parts of some of the articles in the May 2000 issue, and here is one:

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Note that in a quick copy and paste from an antediluvian desk top publishing programme:

Å = a long dash
© = an opening quotation mark :-))
and
ª = a closing quotation mark

IVy on the Wall is a regular column Ken writes for IVy (International Viewpoints)

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Dianetic Auditing: A New Profession

A very first-person account of one man's experiences when Dianetics came to Southern California and the only independently published record of these events.

by Evans W. Farber, USA

BEFORE SCIENTOLOGY, there was Dianetics.

With the publication of L. Ron Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, in 1950 in the USA, humanity on earth witnessed the beginning of a most astonishing sequence of events.

Some today believe that many of those recently acquainted with Hubbard's work and writings may be unaware of the history. If that is the case, perhaps these details will give readers an idea of the atmosphere and the activity of the period. I believe that this is the first independently published account of these events.

Believing that there might be a thirst for authentic accounts of the actual happenings at the beginning, I write mostly about events in the Los Angeles area of California, USA.

Widespread interest in Dianetics

Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health hit the bookstores in the USA in mid-May 1950. Almost immediately, the whole country was agog.

Time Magazine, commenting on the phenomenal sales of the book, called Dianetics ©the poor man's psychoanalysis.ª

Liberty Magazine (a national magazine) had a two-page spread, with a banner headline across the two pages that declared ©Dianetics: the Fraud of the Century.ª A few months later, Liberty Magazine folded, never to be seen or heard of again.

In Pasadena, California, the first Dianetic club began holding meetings in May (I believe). Organized by Idella ©Ikeyª Stone (an author of, among other works, cook books) and her husband, Remington, that club met once a week (!) in the auditorium of Washington High School (I believe) in eastern Pasadena to hear lectures and watch demonstrations. I attended a couple of meetings in late July, and there were about 200 to 300 people in attendance.

Building on the interest

At one of the meetings in Pasadena in July, Russ Schofield gave the demonstration. He had gone to Elizabeth, studied with Hubbard, and returned to Southern California to build up interest in a course for Hubbard to teach people how to audit. (Many of them would choose to become professional auditors.)

Scheduled to begin August 14, it would require four weeks and cost $500.

As part of his promotional efforts, Russ had begun holding demonstration meetings at ten o'clock every Sunday morning in the Campus Theatre, across North Vermont Avenue from Los Angeles City College (as it was named then). At least 200 people attended those demonstrations. Admission was free. After returning from a month-long trip in mid-July, I attended those demonstrations until the course began.

First Los Angeles course

Russ Schofield was very successful: he signed up 215 students for the course. I believe it would prove to be the largest single class Hubbard would teach.

Arguably, that course was the real start of the new profession: Dianetic Auditing.

It certainly got its greatest impetus in Los Angeles.

That first LA course had students from many walks of life. It had two dentists (one female), two ophthalmologists, two chiropractors, an attorney's wife, a professional violinist. a nurse, an electrical engineer, a police lieutenant, one lab worker from a major Californian university, one administrator from that same university, one secretary, one moving picture studio executive, a science fiction writer, and one factory worker: me. I do not recall any persons of color that were students.

The course was taught in the auditorium of a building at 715 South Parkview Avenue in Los Angeles, about two miles west of the downtown business section of the city, and about a block south of the famed Wilshire district. Six or seven smaller rooms were ©classroomsª.

Dianetics taught by instructors

When Ron came west to Los Angeles in early August, he brought with him about six or eight of his students as Instructors. Jack Horner was one of that first group of Instructors, and it was while a student on that first course in Los Angeles that I met him.

One of those who came with Ron was a man named Brad Shank whom I had met while studying General Semantics in Los Angeles a few years earlier. He was assigning students to the various Instructors; so he assigned me to his group. After one day as Instructor, Brad was asked to help Ron with the administrative tasks (which help Ron greatly needed during those chaotic days), so his group was combined with Ed Dunn's group, making about twenty in all. It was the largest group.

Ed told us, by way of introduction, that he had played fullback on Notre Dame's football team. Can't say if it's true or not. But he sure had the build for it.

For that matter, Ron had the build for it also. He was about six feet tall, and weighed about 225 pounds at that time, I would judge. He had a thick body, but it wasn't fat. When you shook hands with him, you knew you were shaking hands with a man of strength. I liked him, but I was never in awe of him; neither then nor later.

Each Instructor taught a small group in a classrom, each of which had chairs and a ©daybedª (not as high as a regular bed, and just wide enough for one), with a light mattress, a cover and a pillow. One group used the auditorium as a classroom, with the daybed on the stage. And there were even a few windows high on each side of the auditorium.

One of the students would be ©the preclear of the dayª, so to speak. Lying on the daybed, shoes off and eyes closed, the pc would be audited by either the Instructor or a fellow student. Just like in the book.

How Ron taught then

Every morning, five days a week, Ron gave two lectures to all 215 students: one lecture from eight to nine, and one from nine-thirty to ten-thirty. Then half of the students went home. They were known as the ©Extended Class.ª

The other half (the ©Intensive Classª) stayed and gathered in their classrooms at eleven, for two hours of demonstration auditing, along with questions and answers about how auditing was done. After an hour for lunch, more classroom time until six p.m. After supper, students were expected to practice on each other what they had learned. It's my recollection that students were auditing in that building every day of the week (and nights as well). Living in Los Angeles I went home at night.

I don't know if that building ever closed during that period.

On Friday of the fourth week we were given a written test. The next day, those who passed were announced.

I was not among them. I required another week to pass; nevertheless my HDA1 Certificate is dated September 11, 1950. A clerical error, I suppose.

The ©Extended Classª would return in a month for their four weeks of classroom training and practice auditing.

We learned how to audit by watching the Instructor (or a student) audit a student, by being corrected when we needed to be, and by asking questions. Once in a while Ron would audit a student in the auditorium. (I believe that that remained the teaching method until development of the Training Routines (TRs), sometime in 1956, if memory serves.)

That's how Dianetic auditing was taught in those days.

It worked.

Seeking improvements to Dianetics

Along about October 1950, the ©Dianetic Auditors Bulletinª had announced a $500 prize for anyone who came up with an improvement to Dianetics by the end of December.

Don't rightly recall exactly what all the requirements were, but the offer certainly impressed me. Ron was looking for improvements. Evidently he thought that that was a good way to get some.

And then there was ©E-Therapyª, a method created by a man named Kitsleman, who lived in Hawaii, I believe. Word got around that Ron did not think that ©E-Therapyª was an improvement. Someone else will have to give IVy's readers a critique of ©E-Therapy.ª I have forgotten its details.

Other people had different ideas. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get in on the activity; some even wanted to take over the leadership of Dianetics. For instance, Ron once told me about a man in Seattle who had been selling a course and giving a ©Hubbard Dianetic Certificateª; and he had had to go there and stop it.

Ron as a person

In those early days Ron was a very approachable human being. Everyone called him ©Ronª. And he called everyone by their first name. I always thought that he was not at all overwhelmed by all the publicity. Many times, I got the impression that he was enjoying himself and his adventure hugely. He certainly did not have a ©big headª.

When Ron was around there were some great times. Let me set the stage.

In about November 1950, the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation bought the Casa de Rosas, an historic home which had been used for years as a rooming house/hotel at 2600 South Hoover Street in Los Angeles, and moved training and processing there. The many small rooms were ideal for classrooms, for practice auditing, and for the intensives that the Foundation offered. A 25-hour intensive cost $500, as I recall.

The Casa also had a fair-sized auditorium with a low stage. About one evening a week, Ron gave a demonstration of his latest findings. Everyone was invited. There was no charge.

Once during the November-December period, he demonstrated his early research on what he would describe in Science of Survival, published ten months later, as lock-scanning. The blonde (and beautiful) Jeanette Barrieau, a former student on the first course, was the demonstratee.

I believe that somewhere in the published material, there is a picture of that session, with Ron auditing Jeanette (who is lying on a daybed on the stage), and showing the crowd in the background. I stood against the back wall, having arrived late after auditing a preclear. Very exciting to see how he audited new stuff!

It was common knowledge that Ron often did research whenever an idea hit him, and he didn't seem to much care who was around to observe.

Then there was the time before holiday week when the Foundation held a Christmas party in the auditorium for all the students and former students.

The highlight of that party, and my most vivid memory of it, was a counselling skit in which Ron came on stage wearing a cotton mop-head dyed a horribly bright orange color, wearing horn-rim glasses and talking with a pronounced Germanic accent, imitating himself imitating a psychoanalyst. (!)

Everyone howled. Perceptive Reader will appreciate.

Despite the press attacks and the take-over attempts, in my personal experience Ron was always genial, courteous and friendly to everyone.

¤

Evans Farber wrote in IVy 38, August 1998 on Early Days of Scientology in Southern California. There is much of value in back numbers of IVy, and they are all available at reduced price. Contact your nearest distributor for prices.

And a sample of the current IVy (limited supply - send your postal address)

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Ant Antony A Phillips
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