History of Dianetics - The Emergence of Dianetics

The Emergence of Dianetics

In January 1949, Hubbard informed his literary agent, Forrest J. Ackerman, that he was writing a book on the "cause and cure of nervous tension", which he was going to call either The Dark Sword or Excalibur or Science of the Mind, and assured Ackerman that the book had "more selling and publicity angles than any book of which I have ever heard." In the same month, he told Writers' Markets and Methods magazine that he was working on a "book of psychology".

In April 1949, Hubbard told the Gerontological Society at Baltimore City Hospital that he was preparing a paper with the somewhat unwieldy title of Certain Discoveries and Researches Leading to the Removal of Early Traumatic Experiences Including Attempted Abortion, Birth Shock and Infant Illnesses and Accidents with an Examination of their Effects Physiological and Psychological and their Potential Influence on Longevity on the Adult Individual with an Account of the Techniques Evolved and Employed. Hubbard's letter was "politely received", but the Society apparently declined involvement. He also wrote to the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. These letters, and their responses, have not been published, though Hubbard later said that they had been negative.

In 1949, Hubbard told his friend John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine and publisher of many of Hubbard's short stories, about his work. Campbell had been one of Hubbard's early test subjects and believed that Hubbard's techniques had cured his persistent sinusitis, so he was an enthusiastic supporter. In a letter to one of Astounding's contributors, Jack Williamson, he wrote: "I know dianetics is one of, if not the greatest, discovery of all Man's written and unwritten history. It produces the sort of stability and sanity men have dreamed about for centuries."

In July 1949, Campbell wrote to another contributor, Dr. Joseph A. Winter, a physician from Michigan. Winter was intrigued by Campbell's claims about Hubbard's work, but initially skeptical; Hubbard sent him what he called "an operator's manual for your use" which convinced Winter that Dianetics had some promise. Dr. Winter later wrote:

With cooperation from some institutions, some psychiatrists, he has worked on all types of cases. Institutionalized schizophrenics, apathies, manics, depressives, perverts, stuttering, neuroses - in all, nearly 1000 cases. But just a brief sampling of each type; he doesn't have proper statistics in the usual sense. But he has one statistic. He has cured every patient he worked with. He has cured ulcers, arthritis, asthma.

In October 1949, Winter, Hubbard, and Campbell met at Hubbard's home in Bay Head, New Jersey to continue work. Winter attempted to interest some medical colleagues and psychiatrists in Dianetics, with little success, and suggested to Hubbard that he publish an article to stimulate interest in his work. Perhaps mindful of the rejection of his earlier efforts, Hubbard told Winter that "the articles you suggest would be more acceptable coming from another pen than mine." Accordingly, in late 1949, Winter wrote a paper "giving a brief resumé of the principles and methodology of dianetic therapy" which he submitted informally to an editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. However, the editor told Winter that "the paper as written did not contain sufficient evidence of efficacy to be acceptable and was, moreover, better suited to one of the journals which dealt with psychotherapy." He revised the paper, added case histories provided by Hubbard, and submitted it to the American Journal of Psychiatry, which rejected it on the same grounds.

According to the Church of Scientology, Hubbard issued his early research in the form of a manuscript entitled Dianetics: The Original Thesis in 1948; Hubbard gives the year as 1949. It received a wider public release in 1951 and is now published as the book The Dynamics of Life. The original text is not available for comparison with the 1951 publication, but it may have comprised the "operator's manual" written by Hubbard for Winter, which is the first independently attested codification of Dianetics.