Volume 5, Issue 6, page 8

personnel of these Foundations are many
articulate individuals who can speak for
themselves far more ably than this writer
and this series is wide open to personal
expressions by such fine exponents of
auditing and Dianetics during the early
days as A.S. VanVogt, Wayne Dunbar, Parker Morgan, Don Purcell (who has never
received more than a fraction of the
credit and appreciation he deserves),
Walt Garrett, Ken Schultz, Leo West, Hardin Walsh, John W. Campbell Jr., Raymond
F. Jones (who wrote the best short novel
ever written on or around the basic theory
of the reactive mind and the engram bank
and which was published in Campbell's
magazine under the title, "I Tell You
Three Times"), Lohren Applegate, Martha
Courtis (whose "On Auditing" won her the
deserving award of a Fellowship). Richard
deMille (who not only wrote the textbooks
of 1951-52. but also "An Introduction to
Scientology", thus constructing the nearperfect bridge between Dianetics and what
we now know as Scientology), and many
others.

Suffice it for now to say that the
first formal schooling began in Elizabeth,
N.J., within weeks after the first book
was published about May. 1950.

There can be no doubt that some of the
schooling was good, and that the idea was
very popular. However, based on what the
writer saw of results and what ultimately
happened to far too many of the so-called
" students ", an opinion must be expressed
at this time that the wholesale training
of all comers with enough ofoola -- who were
graduated after a month as "professional
auditors" -- was the gravest administrative
error Hubbard fell into, and it is even
more regretful in retrospect because such
training was forced upon him by demands
made by thousands of persons who may have
nearly swamped him with the pressure of
their urgencies, cooking from every degree
of physical and mental emergency.

Recently, an early-day auditor wno was
at Elizabeth during the first class said
to this writer in a letter on the subject:
"People wanted something like Dianetics. I believe they still do. They hate
the graft in industries like undertaking,
psychiatry, policy rackets, etc. They
wont a chance at helping themselves.
"When the first Foundation (in Elizabeth) opened, the crowd of people camping
out around Hubbard's home were asked to
fall in and help address reply cards to
the folks writing in for information on
how they could get going. It took a dozen
volunteers a week to address the first
official mailings."
An estimated 45,000 persons ultimately
responded to "The Modern Science of Mental Health", if we average out several
guesstimates from persons involved.

Again quoting my correspondent:
"The experiences I had in auditing and
being audited jolted me into the realization that there was more to the situation

(of life and beingness) than matter only,
and it seems to me that a lot of other
people had this same reaction and turned
from an attitude of cold, physical science, rejecting any non-materialistic
interpretation, to the opposite point of
view. They had found a sort of laboratory
which did not only postulate spirit, but
proved the existence of it."
My correspondent adds that someone
should gather together the tremendous material which emerged in 1950-51, and correlate it into a single text which could
be used to really spread the ability to
audit. He states that in his opinion the
"schools" as a group failed to add up to
their responsibility and on this point
the writer of this text agrees -- that it
is possible, even probable, that only the
first few classes really gave very much
value because they had less "new stuff"
to complicate the picture, and they stuck
to what were then regarded as essentials;
as newer data came along they took the
play away from the basic material, which
was and still is the only solid basis for
the production of therapeutic results,
and that the same trend and the same result continues today.

If you judge from these favorable remarks, you may then be surprised to learn
that the letter being quoted is not in
favor of either Dianetics, or Hubbard,
and that the writer is extremely antipathetic about the whole thing, in spite of
being one of the best known of the earlyday Dianetic "names".

You also may wonder, if Dianetics is
so hot, why the letter is maihly derogatory in context; and why it credits much
of Hubbard's work to other individuals --
particularly after the first book