Medicine: Of Two Minds

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A new cult is smoldering through the U.S. underbrush. Its name: dianetics. Last week its bible, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was steadily climbing the U.S. bestseller lists. Demand was especially heavy on the West Coast. Bookstores in Los Angeles were selling Dianetics on an under-the-counter basis. Armed with the manual, which they called simply "The Book," fanatical converts overflowed Saturday night meetings in Hollywood, held dianetics parties, formed clubs, and "audited" (treated) each other.

In many ways, dianetics-("the science of mind") is the poor man's psychoanalysis; it has a touch of Couéism and a mild resemblance to Buchmanite confession. It purports to cleanse the mind of previous harmful influences, thus vastly increasing its powers and efficiency, by making the individual relive former painful experiences to "discharge" their evil power. According to dianetics' discoverer, L. (for Lafayette) Ron (for Ronald) Hubbard: "The hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration has been discovered and skills have been developed for their invariable cure." Sample ills: arthritis, allergies, asthma, some coronary difficulties, eye trouble, ulcers, migraine headaches, sex deviations.

Ron Hubbard, 39, a swashbuckling, red-haired six-footer, originally unveiled dianetics in the magazine Astounding Science-Fiction. As a result, its earliest devotees were science fiction fans. When Dianetics was first published (Hermitage House; $4), doctors and psychologists paid it little heed. But last week some were getting in on what seemed like a good thing. The Los Angeles Times carried an ad: "Those interested in receiving dianetic auditing please telephone DU 2-3260." At the end of the line was Dr. Vernon Bronson Twitchell, psychologist; he said he got about a dozen calls a day.

Reason & Records. According to Hubbard's "science," the mind consists of two parts: 1) the analytical (corresponding roughly to Freud's "conscious" mind), which perceives, remembers and reasons; and 2) the reactive (something like Freud's "unconscious"), which neither remembers nor reasons but simply records. Normally, the analytical mind is dominant. But it can be "switched off" by unconsciousness from injury or anesthesia, more often by acute emotional shock or physical pain.

Then, says Hubbard, the reactive mind is switched on. It does not store memories, but "engrams"—impressions on protoplasm itself. An engram is, he declares, "a complete recording, down to the last accurate detail, of every perception present in a moment of ... 'unconsciousness.'"