The Fundamentals of Thought 1956 Introduction

Introduction

While "Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought" was originally published as a resume of Scientology for use in trans- lations into non-English tongues, the book itself is of inestimable value to the beginner or advanced student of the mind and life.

Containing much material new to Scientologists, the book forms a compact but broad survey of the subject.

Equipped with this book alone the student of the mind could begin a practice and perform seeming miracles in changing the states of health, ability and intelligence of people.

No such knowledge has ever before existed and no such results have ever before been attainable by Man as those which can be reached by a study of this brief volume.

Give this book to a man or a woman in trouble, a man or woman with an inquiring nature, a man or a woman with associates who need a better life, and let that man or woman study this volume carefully and apply it. Change and a better life will result.

This thin book is a summation, if brief, of the results of 50,000 years of thinking men. Their materials researched and capped by a quarter of a century of original search by L. Ron Hubbard has brought the humanities, so long outdistanced by the "exact sciences " into a state of equality, if not superiority, to physics, chemistry and mathematics.

What has been attempted by a thousand universities and founda- tions at a cost of billions has been completed quietly here.

This is how life works. This is how you change men and women and children for the better.

The use or neglect of this material may well determine the use or neglect of the atomic bomb by Man. Scientology is already winning in this field. In the same period in history, two of the most sweeping forces Man has known have come to fruition : a knowledge of himself and others with Scientology, a means of des- troying himself and all others by atomic fission. Which force wins depends in a large measure on your use of Scientology.

Scientology is today around the world, represented on every continent on Earth. As you read this, this very book is being trans- lated into many non-English tongues and is being distributed to

nations whose thronging multi-millions have never before been touched by Anglo-American thought.

As L. Ron Hubbard has said in an essay :

" Scientology and Scientologists are not revolutionaries. They are evolutionaries. They do not stand for overthrow. They stand for the improvement of what we have.

'Scientology is not political. When the fires of ideology threaten to consume us all, it is time to forget politics and seek reason.

"The mission of Scientology is not conquest-it is civilization. It is a war upon stupidity, the stupidity which leads us toward the Last War of All.

"To a Scientologist, the real barbarism of Earth is stupidity. Only in the black muck of ignorance can the irrational conflicts of ideologies germinate.

"Government, to a Scientologist, is a thing of reason and all problems of government can be resolved by reason.

"Perhaps in yesterday one could afford the exploitation of ignorance for the sake of fancied gain. Perhaps in yesterday the study of the mind and reason was something for a summer afternoon. Perhaps in that same yesterday one amongst us could afford his irresponsibility and hate.

" But that was yesterday. Today exploited ignorance, dilettant attitude toward existing knowledge, a refusal to assume one's role as a responsible member of the human race may be punished in the searing thunderclap of H-bombs released by men whose intelligence and statecraft were incapable of a better solution. Ignorant people elect ignorant rulers. And only ignorant rulers lead to war-and this time will lead to a war which will bring silence forever after to Earth.

"As your associates, their homes, their children, their posses- sions and all their future lie ending in a radioactive street, there won't be time for us to wish we'd worked harder, been less easily dissuaded from pressing our arguments. The copies of this book you did not distribute will lie there too.

"Some say they have no fear of death until the midnight of their dying is at hand. They say different, then.

" Those who strike at this work out of some black well of ideological mis-orientation, some anti-social cravenness, strike at the heart of Man-for Man has been a long time on the track to reason and Scientology can take him there.

" There is not much Earth time. We must work.

" The criminal is ignorant and stupid. Ignorance and stupidity may therefore be called criminal.

" Cause Man to lay aside his hates and listen. Freedom from Ignorance is at hand. Perhaps that was the Kingdom of Heaven.

" There is not much Earth time in which to distribute this knowledge. This is the solution to our barbarism out of which we would lose all. Scientology works. We must work, all of us - not to harangue Man toward impossible freedoms, but to make Man civilized enough to be worthy of his freedom.

" It is time Man grew up. That is what we have in mind. For there can be but weeping in the night where ignorance, factionalism, hatred and exploitation are served by the most ferocious and final weapon of all-the H-bomb.

" Change no man's religion, change no man's politics, interrupt the sovereignty of no nation. Instead teach man to use what he has and what he knows to the factual creation, within any political reference, a civilization on Earth for the first time.

"And so we work."

We trust you will find this volume of use in your home life and your business. We hope that by placing it in your hands, you and many others can lead better fives.

THE EDITORS

Note.-This text has been organized so that a complete trans- lation of all of it will deliver without interruption or destructive change, the basics of Scientology into non-English tongues.