How Can I Learn What Scientology Is?

The best way to learn what a subject is to find out for yourself. This means going to the source material on a subject.

The best way to get an incorrect idea of what a subject is, is to listen to what people think about a subject, listen to someones interpretation of a subject, listen to rumors about a subject or listen to those who are opposed to a subject.

Have you ever relayed a story to someone about an incident in your life or had someone just observe something that happened to you but when this person re-tells the story they get it totally wrong or what they thought happened was totally different than what really happened.

Have you ever witnessed the scene of a crime or accident and you have as many interpretations of what happened as you have witnesses.

So how would you discover for yourself what Scientology is? You would read the source material. This is what has been termed the BASICS. Why the BASICS? Because they are the basic writings and research trail of L. Ron Hubbard in first developing Dianetics and then Scientology. They actually comprise the largest body of information ever assembled on the mind, spirit and life, rigorously refined and codified by L. Ron Hubbard through five decades of research, investigation and development. The results of that work are contained in hundreds of books and more than 3,000 recorded lectures.

If you want to read one Basic Book on the Theory and Practice of Scientology read, Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought.

Otherwise, here are the beginning books which should be studied by anyone new to Dianetics and Scientology and how they should be studied.

• Dianetics: The Original Thesis

The DYNAMIC Principle of EXISTENCE

L. Ron Hubbard’s first description of Dianetics. Originally circulated in manuscript form to a few friends, it was soon copied and passed hand-to-hand until it literally circled the globe. But the resultant word of mouth only fueled the fire.

• Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science
The hidden source of your worries, upsets and insecurity… REVEALED

L. Ron Hubbard’s own story revealing how he arrived at his discovery of the Reactive Mind that underlies and enslaves Man.

• Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
Indisputably the most widely read and influential book ever written about the human mind

Dianetics is an adventure. It is an exploration into Terra Incognito, the human mind, that vast and hitherto unknown realm half an inch back of our foreheads. L. Ron Hubbard

Containing discoveries heralded as greater than the wheel or fire, Dianetics has remained a bestseller for more than 50 years. And with over 20 million copies in print, generating a movement that spans virtually every country on Earth, it’s indisputably the most widely read and influential book ever written about the human mind.

• Self Analysis

LEARN TO KNOW YOURSELF and not just a shadow

Do you really know yourself? Now you can, with Self Analysis. This book will take you through your past, your potentials, your life. First, with a series of self-examinations and using a special version of the Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation, you plot yourself on the Tone Scale.

• Handbook for Preclears

Whose LIFE are YOU living?

Handbook for Preclears is the legendary self-processing manual that marks the transition from the subject of Dianetics to Scientology. Here are the breakthroughs that revealed the phenomenon of the LIFE CONTINUUM — a mechanism by which every individual takes on the disabilities of the deceased or departed, until they are no longer living their own life.

• Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought
You may have been taught that the mind, spirit and life are very difficult things to know about. This is the first principle of Scientology: It is possible to know about the mind, the spirit and life.

L. Ron Hubbard

A 50,000 year search to discover the fundamentals of thought.

• The Problems of Work
Work your life so it works for you

Bring ORDER and UNDERSTANDING to life’s confusions
Life is composed of seven-tenths work, one-tenth familial, one-tenth political and one-tenth relaxation. Here, then, is Scientology applied to hat crucial seven-tenths of existence.

• Scientology: A New Slant on Life
Timeless ANSWERS TRANSCENDING LIFE itself

The materials of Scientology comprise the greatest accumulation of knowledge ever assembled on the mind, spirit and life. Through more than a hundred books and publications, thousands more articles and essays, and over 3,000 recorded lectures, the works of L. Ron Hubbard embrace virtually every aspect of living.

• The Way to Happiness
True joy and happiness are valuable. If one does not survive, no joy and no happiness are obtainable. Trying to survive in a chaotic, dishonest and generally immoral society is difficult.

Again, Find out for yourself.

What’s the History of psychosurgery?

Instruments of Destruction

Not to be confused with medical brain surgery which alleviates actual physical conditions, psychosurgery destroys healthy brain tissue and is condemned by many doctors for its crippling effect on the patient.

Psychosurgery uses various methods to destroy the brain, tearing it with a scalpel, burning it with electrode implants or shredding the frontal lobes with an ice pick.

The Roots of Torture:

The roots of psychosurgery can be traced to a medieval treatment called trepanning (cutting out circular sections of the skull). Ancient doctors believed this liberated demons and bad spirits from a person.

However, modern psychosurgery can be traced to an incident in 1848 when an explosion drove an iron rod through the cheek and out the top of the head of railway worker Phineas Gage. Before the accident, Gage had been a capable foreman, a religious man with a well-balanced mind and a shrewd business sense. After the rod was removed and he recovered, Gage became fitful, irreverent, grossly profane, impatient and obstinate.

That an alteration in behavior could be achieved by damaging parts of the brain without killing a person did not go unnoticed, and in 1882 Swiss asylum superintendent Gottlieb Burckhardt became the first known psychosurgeon. He removed cerebral tissue from six patients, hoping the patient might be transformed from a disturbed to a quiet dement. Although one died and others developed epilepsy, paralysis and aphasia (loss of ability to use or understand words), Burckhardt was pleased with his now quiet patients.

So was born a new mental treatment.

On November 12, 1935, Egas Moniz, a professor of neurology in Lisbon, Portugal, performed the first lobotomy inspired by an experiment in which the frontal lobes of two chimpanzees were removed. Moniz conducted the same operation on humans, theorizing that the source of mental disorders was this part of the brain.

A 12-year follow-up study observed that Monizs patients suffered relapses, seizures and deaths. Yet this did not deter others from following in his footsteps.

Operation Ice Pick

On September 14, 1936, U.S. psychiatrist Walter J. Freeman performed his first lobotomy. Using electric shock as an anesthetic, he inserted an ice pick beneath the eye socket bone into the brain with a surgical mallet. Movement of the instrument then severed the fibers of the frontal brain lobes, causing irreversible brain damage.

Between 1946 and 1949 the lobotomies increased tenfold. Freeman himself performed or supervised approximately 3,500 procedures, producing armies of zombies. By 1948, the death rate from lobotomies was 3%. Yet Freeman toured from city to city, promoting his procedure by lecturing and publicly lobotomizing patients in theatrical fashion. The press dubbed his tour Operation Ice Pick.

Today, under the sanitized name of neurosurgery for mental disorders (NMD), psychosurgery advocates such as the Scottish Health Secretary propose that lobotomies performed by burning out the frontal lobes be used on patients without their consent. In Russia between 1997 and 1999, Dr. Sviatoslav Medvedec, director of St. Petersburgs Institute of the Human Brain, admitted to overseeing more than 100 psychosurgery operations given mainly to teenagers for drug addiction. I think the West is too cautious about neurosurgery because of the obsession with human rights… he said.

In 1999, Alexander Lusikian was admitted to the Brain Institute at St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was to receive psychosurgery to cure his drug addiction. The operation was performed without anesthesia. Four holes were drilled into his head during a four-hour operation and sections of the brain were cauterized (burned) with liquid nitrogen, causing excruciating pain. After he was released, the wounds on his scalp festered so badly that he needed to be re-hospitalized. Within a week of the psychosurgery, Lusikian was craving drugs and within two months, he had completely reverted to drugs.

FROM STARDOM TO DESPAIR
Frances Farmer
1914-1970

Upset over a string of failed relationships, Hollywood actress Frances Farmer was arrested in January 1943, after a bout of heavy drinking. Refusing to cooperate with psychiatrist Thomas H. Leonard, she was committed to an institution. For the next seven years, she was subjected to 90 insulin shock treatments and numerous bouts of electroshock. She later told of being raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats, poisoned by tainted food, chained in padded cells, strapped in strait jackets and half drowned in ice baths. By the time of her release, she was withdrawn and terrified of people. After three years, she was up to working againsorting dirty laundry. Her career and life were ruined.

Is Scientology a secret society?

A secret society is an organization of initiated persons whose members, purposes, and rituals are kept secret. Human groups throughout history have maintained secret societies. The ceremonies of initiation into such a society typically begin with an oath pledging secrecy as to all proceedings of the society, ascribing special obligations to its members, and assenting to penalties for violation of the oath. This is followed by tests of the candidate’s worthiness, including physical courage and even painful mutilations. A dominant theme in the initiation trials of most of these societies is the symbolism of death and rebirth. After the candidate has passed the prescribed tests, the secret knowledge is transmitted to him. Secret societies have served as schools in which the elders instruct the young men in the ways of their society.

The Church of Scientology and its actions are anything but secretive. In fact, the Church published a 1,000-page What is Scientology?, an encyclopedic reference book that explains everything one might want to know about the Church. Another reference work, primarily for scholars, is Scientology: Theology and Practice of a Contemporary Religion. The Church also holds open house events and tours regularly, and many of our churches open their facilities free of charge for use by community and civic groups.

There is nothing mysterious about Scientology or its members and practices. The Church’s leaders are in close touch with the membership and they hold events throughout the year which are attended by tens of thousands.

Scientologists are actively involved in their communities, visible and effective.

The Church has found that those who allege the Church is secret are almost always those who never bothered to try and communicate or find out anything, in which case they would have discovered Scientologists to actually be more outgoing with information than adherents of other faiths.