Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

clear back in various periods of his life, moving inexorably towards birth or conception. Most preclears,
Hubbard advised, would eventually experience a 'sperm dream' during which, as an egg,
they would swim up a channel to meet the sperm. Once the earliest engram had been erased, later
engrams would erase more easily.
An average auditing session should last about two hours and Hubbard estimated that a minimum
of twenty hours' auditing would be needed before the pre-clear began to reap the rewards.
To a nation increasingly inclined to unload its problems on an expensive psychiatrist's couch, the
promise of Dianetics was wondrous. It all seemed so eminently logical, pragmatic and alluring, as
if human life was about to take on a new sparkle. With the book in one hand, what problems could
not be solved? Here at last was a do-it-yourself therapy for the people that friends could offer to
friends, husbands to wives, fathers to children. Any doubts were swept aside by the book's
overweening absolutism: who would dare make such sweeping claims if they were not true?
Even the immoderate tenor of the author's attack on the medical profession struck many chords.
Electric shock therapy and pre-frontal lobotomy were frightening and mysterious techniques
disturbingly reminiscent of the experiments that had taken place in Nazi concentration camps,
horrors only recently uncovered and still fresh in the mind. It was understandable that people
wanted to believe in Dianetics, if for no other reason than to relegate such seemingly medieval
practices to history.
For the first few days after publication of Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health, it
appeared as if the publisher's caution about the book's prospects had been entirely justified. Early
indications were that it had aroused little interest; certainly it was ignored by most reviewers. But
suddenly, towards the end of May, the line on the sales graph at the New York offices of Hermitage
House took a steep upturn.
The first purchasers of Dianetics were mostly science-fiction fans and readers of Astounding.
Primarily they wanted to see if Hubbard's new science really did work. Typical among them was
Jack Horner, a psychology graduate at a college in Los Angeles: 'I had been a science-fiction fan
since 1934 and I was fascinated by Campbell's editorials in Astounding. I ordered the book as
soon as I heard about it. I got it on Monday, read it by Tuesday and was auditing on Wednesday. I
sat down and audited five people and boy, it worked just like Hubbard said it would. I said to myself,
"Gee, he may not have it all, but he's sure got a good piece of it."'[9]
A. E. van Vogt knew the book was coming out because Hubbard had been telephoning him every
day from Elizabeth to try and get him interested in Dianetics. Van insisted he was a writer, not a
therapist, and had no intention of reading Ron's book. But when an advance copy arrived in the mail
he could not resist taking a look and he was piqued to discover how well Dianetic theory dovetailed
with his own fiction. His most popular novel, Slan, had been about supermen evolving fantastic
new powers of the mind very much in the way envisaged by Dianetics.
Van Vogt read Dianetics twice, then decided to experiment on his wife's sister, who was visiting
them at the time. He began auditing her, following the instructions in the book, and to his utter
astonishment found she was soon re-living the moment of her birth. She had been a breech baby
and Van and his wife, Edna Mayne, watched in awe as she went through the motions of being born,
screaming and yelling as she 'felt' the forceps pulling her out. Next day, Van invited Forrie Ackerman
and his wife over.
'Van was the first in town to get Ron's book' said Ackerman. 'He told me that his 'phone was ringing