From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 2 - August 1991
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
In Memory of L.Ron Hubbard
By Leonard Dunn(1), England
The Romans had a saying - 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum',
which roughly translates as - Speak only good of the dead. Mark
Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar proclaimed that 'the evil
that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their
bones'.
There are too many these days who delight in revealing his faults
and his failings whilst ignoring the good that he did. Is this
not, perhaps, an indication of a less than optimum Tone Level?
How I saw him as a being
I much prefer to remember him from the early days but one writer,
Jon Atack, whose book I reviewed in the last issue, shows how he
steadily
declined in a way that was similar to Adolf Hitler. They both suffered
from the same type of mental disorder. This caused him to act very
irrationally indeed as the illness progressed. I refer to this in
more detail in the review of Jon's book with the information given
by Geoffrey Filbert which explains many things. Even from my earliest
days in the Movement I regarded him as a man and not as a Deity. I
still do but as a man who has done more to help humanity than most.
I can only think that his most virulent one - sided critics cannot
have achieved the gains from Scientology that I have.
Early lectures and processes
The early days stand apart from much of the later developments. The
lectures and the tech of the early days were quite shattering in their
impact on those who were able to benefit from them. I was fortunate
enough to be one of them. Whilst I was doing Group auditing on a Basic
Course I encountered that really great process in which one reaches
out with one's beingness to find and hold the corners of the room.
It was during this process that I first exteriorised and had the
strange
experience of seeing the one wall of the room with my physical eyes
and perceiving the wall at right angle to it with my Theta Perception.
This was certainly a convincing experience of being something other
than my body. I already knew this in theory, of course, but now it
became a reality.
Individual auditing in scientology
It became even more so in my first professional auditing which soon
followed when I had the experience of going into a wall and
experiencing
the 'brickiness' of it . Later I found myself high above the
Underground Station at Notting Hill Gate and looking down at the
people
below. Even stranger was when my body was still in the auditing
room and I was in the street looking into a shop window. I was told
to move along a little and in doing so experienced a feeling of moving
in a series of short jerks. I had felt nothing like this before but
when my auditor asked me if I had felt this and I had answered in
the affirmative he told me that was how the Thetan makes short moves.
In under 25 hours I achieved the state of Clear, although this was
not realised until many years later but the effect upon me was the
opening up of a new and lovelier world. As a result of a loving
and well-intentioned but actually repressive upbringing I was
in a state of very considerable inferiority. I had got rid of some
of this by the use of Positive Thinking but this was nothing to what
I achieved after becoming Clear.
After clear
After this good start the processes that I ran, once the Bridge was
brought into being, were largely a matter of emphazising what I had
already achieved. In those early days there was none of the
standardisation
that the Bridge later introduced since that runs on the idea that
all people need to be run in the same way. In the early days we were
treated as individuals which meant that ones individual needs were
handled from the very start. In consequence of this good beginning
I was later able to run processes that I shouldn't have been able
to do without any great trouble from doing so, although this was not
the case for many others. This was in the later sixties when the
decline
of the C of S began, and the Orgs were actually running Dianetics
on Clears when this had been forbidden.
Lectures
Outstanding amongst the early lectures were the justly famous
Philadelphia
Doctorate Course series. These, in my opinion, are worth anyone's
time to listen to since they are almost unique - there are a few
supplementary lectures which were given soon after in London.
These lectures were given to the students in conjunction with a
typescript
of the book which eventually became 8-8008 and dealt with the type
of processing just being introduced and becoming called Creative
Processing.
This was the method used in my first Professional Auditing. When I
heard the cassettes of these lectures some 20 years later they gave
me a very clear insight into why I had achieved the results I did.
One Lecture in particular, entitled 'Memory - not Human',
allowed me to realise why so many things that I had encountered in
Scientology where more a remembering of things past rather than
something that was entirely new to me, as it seemed with so many other
students who encountered difficulties when we were on the evening
HPA Course in 1954-1955(2).
It was whilst we were doing this course that the Axioms of Scientology
were first made public and while many of the class were perplexed
by axiom 11 - the four conditions of existence - they seemed
obvious to me and I found myself explaining them to fellow students.
On the other hand I found difficulty in coming to terms with 'space
is a viewpoint of dimension'. Another student referred me to The
Factors, and then this became clear.
LRH on facts and opinions
The very first of the PDC Lectures was when LRH told his students
that he would present them with facts and opinions. The facts were
the way that the processes must be run. Anything else was to be
considered
as opinion and not accepted simply because he held that view but
should
be considered and accepted only if one found it to be workable.This
was very different from the dogmatic attitude he later adopted as
his mental disorder took a greater hold on him.
These were exciting and adventurous days when research and development
were going on apace. At this time Ron was not working solely on his
own but in cooperation with his close associates who would work out
better ways of handling cases that could be reached by the processes
currently being used.
OT III was another major turning point in my life since it increased
my awareness of what responsibility really entailed and increased
my tolerance of others quite unbelieveably.
His writing
I have found his writings very lucid and, in comparison with those
of other philosophers, arriving at the point of the matter in a very
short space of time whereas so often philosophical writers just go
on and on whilst still leaving one wondering what they are really
getting at. I know that some intellectual snobs found his work put
too simply. Personally I like a writer to get to the point without
a lot of fuss and bother. He did just this.
In 1953 I was introduced to the 'Book One' -Dianetics, Modern
Science of Mental Health. I read it in three days, at times when
I wasn't at work and on the fourth day I started to use it on my wife
who achieved results from it. Personally I find the modern method
of using the process known as R3R to be much easier to handle.
His sense of humour
One must never forget this great sense of humour which is found
especially
in his lectures where a joke after a spell of great seriousness tends
to make the serious part more readily acceptable. An example of
this is to be found in one of his Phoenix Lectures in their original
taped form - it was deleted in the printed version. He had been
speaking at great length on the subject of things existing because
we consider they exist. It was in the constantly repeated form 'We
have a ... because we consider we have a ...' Finally came 'We
have a First Dynamic because we consider that we have a First Dynamic.
We have a Second Dynamic - but some people don't!' Loud laughter
which relieved the tension and emphasised the points that he wanted
to establish. That was 35 years ago and I still remember it, which
rather establishes the point I am making. He was a really good
speaker.
Seeing him 'live'
I never had the chance to speak to him but I saw him on a number of
occasions. The first time was soon after I qualified as an HPA in
1955. We auditors were called to a 'special' meeting at the
London Org not knowing just why we had been called then. When we were
settled down in came this largy red-haired man exuding friendship
and cheerfulness. The closest I came to him was when my wife and I
were going to the box office to get tickets for the first of a series
of lectures that he gave in a hall at Nottinghill Gate. He passed
us and gave a friendly greeting. The warmth of feeling that emanated
from him was something that I have never forgotten.
He conducted several congresses in London and I went to all of them.
His personality was tremendous and I have always been glad to have
had the experience of hearing him live as it was so different from
recorded lectures which couldn't convey his personal magnetism.
My summary
Summing up, my personal experience of him and of his work has brought
the greatest possible benefit to me, and my whole life has become
vastly fuller and happier because of what I was able to receive from
him. That there is much more still to be learnt cannot be denied but
he said in the early days that Scientology would, in course of time,
be replaced by something better. He set me on a very effective road
to personal awareness and self-confidence. I found a new freedom
that I had not previously dreamed of and he inspired me ever so much
with his ideal of helping others. No matter what his detractors may
say, he started me on a path of success.
(1)Leonard Maurice Dunn, born London
11. September 1913. Bought up in the faith of the Congregatinal
Church.
Entered the Public Library service in 1930. Became a spiritualist
early 30's where introduced to positive thinking. Entered scientology
summer 1953. Clear in spring 1954. HPA a year later. Left C of S
spring
1983. Wrote articles for Reconnection and the Danish magazine
Uafh'ngige Synspunkter. Audited to AA7 and L rundowns. Currently
auditing a natural clear on Filberts lower levels.
(2)HPA (Hubbard Professional Auditor -
in USA HCA, Hubbard Certified Auditor, but in Britain, 'certified'
meant certified insane). When the grades came out in about 1965,
this was replaced by the Academy. Ed.