Dianetics 55! 1955 Foreword
Foreword
Important Note
In studying Dianetics and Scientology be very, very certain you never go past a word you do not fully understand.
The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is that he or she has gone past a word or phrase that was not understood.
Trying to read past a misunderstood word results in mental „fogginess“ and difficulty in comprehending the passages which follow. If you find yourself experiencing this, return to the last portion you understood easily, locate the misunderstood word and get it defined correctly – and then go on.
Most of the terms used in this book are defined as they occur. For additional definitions see the Glossary starting at the end of the book.
FOREWORD
SECRET! Secrets, secrets SECRETS! Ah, the endless quest, the far, far search, the codes, the vias, the symbols, the complications, the compilations, the mathematicity and abstractacity of secrets, secrets, secrets.
And truth. TRUTH! From Keats to Johnny Jones, we all have traffic with the truth, truth, TRUTH! The professors have a truth, the religionists have a truth, the stars and almost anything but government have a truth, truth, TRUTH.
Knowledge! Endeared as a precious torch, abhorred as a neurotic’s nightmare, it is all knowledge, knowledge, Knowledge! You get diplomas for it and buy books full of it, you perish for the lack of it or triumph in the absence of it, but whatever it might be, knowledge is precious, dangerous, valueless and horrible and craved.
And what is knowledge? And what is the SECRET? and what is TRUTH?
Pontius Pilate asked the question when he washed his hands. Alexander executed messengers when the Truth was unpalatable. The Chaldean priest corralled a bit of truth and ruled Chaldea into yesterday and Babylon into dust motes. And rulers and men, scholars and generals have condemned with it, dedicated their lives to it, fought for it and denied it and – have never defined it.
What is TRUTH? What is KNOWLEDGE? What is the SECRET? Are they s from a shaman’s dream? Are they connected with science? Do they belong to philosophy? What are they, whence do they come? Do they exist? Are they owned? Have they ever been written or spoken or guessed? And would one go mad if he knew them?
Dianetics moved into the world on May 9, 1950, with the publication of a book, DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL . It moved with violence although its message was peace. A half a million Americans read it, many, many of these acted upon it and are still acting upon it, and every year it sells still more copies – more copies than the average „best seller.“
Dianetics was an adventure into the dark realms of the secret to accumulate knowledge and to establish the truth. Until Dianetics these commodities have been owned by philosophy of either the esoteric or
DIANETICS 55! 3 L. RON HUBARD
the monotony schools or had been used by the charlatan – with or without surplice – to lure and ensnare.
Dianetics moved into a Dark Age of Reason where only a physical universe fact was given credence. When Dianetics was born every free thinker Man had known had long since been burned or poisoned or dust-binned into the curriculums of „universities.“ It was an age where renown awaited only the manufacturer – not the inventor – of the new can opener, where sanity was adjusted with electrodes and philosophy was made with Univacs. Knowledge and the SECRET being the total assets of vested interest, Dianetics was hit with violence from many quarters. Medicine, entirely cognizant that it could not cure nor even alleviate the majority of Man’s ills, yet like a prima donna who can but croak yet resists the incoming next act, bluntly and viciously condemned in leading weekly magazines, any further glance towards knowledge and truth. The government, fighting a war at the time, entirely cognizant that its pilot supply was old and slow, yet could not communicate on any subject which might remedy the matter. The Better Business Bureaus of the U.S., an organization solidly behind anything good and solid, upheld the objection of capital to this new idea; the Communist Party, being solidly against any alteration of the mind since that would undoubtedly alter devotion, went to considerable lengths to assist the stand of capital. To anyone who wanted a monopoly on knowledge and truth Dianetics was an enemy. To them it was a degraded, wicked, fraudulent hoax – or so they said. However, there happens to be a principle that anything which is thoroughly understood ceases. Their opinion of Dianetics could not have been correct because Dianetics is still here.
During the ensuing four years of commotion, much happened. The only orderly and progressive thing which happened was that Dianetics went on encroaching into the territory of the SECRET along the roadway of KNOWLEDGE to discover nearer TRUTH.
The primary assault of Dianetics was upon reverence and forms. The first book was written as a javelin directed into the doubtlessly sacrosanct vitals of philosophical departments and literature. It was carefully careless with its commas in the belief that commas, contrary to the prevailing mode, have little power to disturb an ultimate truth. The first book was written to be read and understood, and it was written to upset and override and warn off those who would give it the fate of
DIANETICS 55! 4 L. RON HUBARD
being reverable. And the first book was written to be used by anyone who could understand it – and the way it was written, this of course could not include the extant mental charlatan nor the professional dabbler in abilities. As one had learned these could not be trained and if they could have been, wouldn’t have been interested in the proposed goals, it was necessary that a new breed of feline come into being – the auditor – and the auditor did.
Now this adventure along the road of knowledge towards truth was very shiny new in 1950. It was not quite so new but much shinier in 1954. Certain promises were made in 1950 on page 401. And these promises have now been kept.
Man can be cleared. He can be cleared – brought to the condition described in Chapter Two of the first book – by a well-studied and competent auditor in a relatively short length of time.
This book contains processes which were the forerunners of the clearing processes in use today. This means that auditors do have to be trained – we have found definitely that they do. It also means that an auditor who has been trained and processed can now take these newer processes and run them as directed and can achieve the result of Clear.
Thus, in DIANETICS 55! we have, actually, the SECOND BOOK of Dianetics. Everyone has assigned the title First Book to DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH. But nobody , published in 1951, as the Second Book. They haven’t because it obviously wasn’t. SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL was a first book in its own right.
It was the first book of and under Plan C on page 401 of the real First Book. SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL adventured into causation, not into the resolution of problems outlined in the First Book.
Thus there has never been a Second Book of Dianetics. Such a book would have to take the exact problems of the First Book and in the terms and reference of the First Book resolve these problems.
Well, as one looks over fiction novels and technical volumes in general he finds that a four year – almost five – lag between an author’s first and second volume would discover his public to have waned. But when we take up a subject of the status of Dianetics and when we realize that it is condensing into a few years some thousands of years of doing, we see that a lag of four or five years between volumes isn’t so very bad.
What happened in those four or five years? Many things. Somehow, for one thing, research and development was financed and the basic organization, after many limpings, survived. A lot of petty things happened which in another decade will be bone dust – for none of these things, none of the tales of terror, the attacks, the financing, the business advances, were permitted to interrupt the only thing that CAN mean any difference – the product of years of steady gain on the road of knowledge towards the goal of ultimate truth.
Knowledge, Truth, Secrets – they are the guts and anatomy of life. They must not then be owned. They must not then be hidden or bent. They must be permitted to stand out in the bold sunlight for all to see for only when they are to be seen are they safe things to have, to hold, to know.
This is the Second Book of Dianetics. It could mean a new Earth, it could mean a new freedom. But whatever it means it cannot mean nothing in the sense Man uses that word – for you cannot unveil the SECRET and have it ever be quite so secret ever again.
Note: Much of what in this book was termed Dianetics is, in today’s technical lineup, Scientology technology. The two fields are as follows:
DIANETICS: From the Greek dia (through) and noos (soul), thus „through the soul“; a system for the analysis, control and development of human thought which also provides techniques for increased ability, rationality, and freedom from the discovered single source of aberrations and psychosomatic ills. Introduced May, 1950, with publication of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard.
SCIENTOLOGY: is an applied religious philosophy and technology resolving problems of the spirit, Life and thought; discovered, developed and organized by L. Ron Hubbard as a result of his earlier Dianetic discoveries. Coming from the Latin, scio (knowing) and the Greek logos (study), Scientology means „knowing how to know“ or „the study of wisdom.“