In September 1950, just four months after Dianetics was first published, Hubbard went touring the US to promote this science fiction classic. The lecture contains surprising honesty from Hubbard; the recording of these lectures are amusing as it doesn’t contain the sychophantic hyenas who usually howl on cue to his unfunny jokes. This following piece about Hubbard’s personal education comes from his September 23rd 1950 lecture, Introduction to Dianetics.
I was brought back [from Asia] by my father very summarily from my wanderings, [as] I had neglected to go to high school. As a matter of fact, practically the last formal school I attended was here - that is to say where somebody patted me on the back and gave me a certificate and said “you’re it” - was Grant School in Oakland. My father brought me back and he said I had to go to university so he sent me down to a prep school down in Virginia, and I studied for about four months, and took the New York Board of Regents, and got into George Washington University. I think that the Registrar must have been blind that day or had a sonic shut-off, but, [no laughter] uh, ahem, he let me in. I, uh, they regretted it from there on, because I never seemed to stay with the curriculum. Uh, I took my mathematics, uh, I didn’t know arithmetic, but I learned calculus very easily. Uh, when it came to studying to be an engineer, I’m afraid that Artie Johnson down at George Washington University right now would hear my name and throw up his hands in slight horror. At last, they said “well after all you’re not going to practice engineering, we might as well pass you on a few of these courses.” [Laughs to self; no one else laughs.] This was a great relief to me, since my father was bound and determined that the only measure of excellence was “A”. My only measure of excellence was whether or not I learned anything about what I wanted to know….
Now, old Professor Brown was teaching for the first time in the United States “Atomic and Molecular Phenomenon”, now that’s very much of an ear-cracking subject, we didn’t even have a textbook, we had nothing there but the old rules and so forth that Halley had laid down. People were still talking- they’d say, they wouldn’t say “Einstein.” they would say “Eiiinstein!?” [silence.]
Uh, the people were pretty much impressed with Atomic and Molecular Phenomenon. I took the course, and uh, of course, flunked it. But uh, the uh point is, that uh, the atomic and molecular phenomenon might possibly give us some sort of a clue to life force. After all, we were studying rock-bottom energy. What was energy? What could it do?
Ah, for instance, occasionally in class somebody might hazard the fact that somebody someday might split an atom. Well this was unheard of, but they called these people “wild radicals”.
In just as much a radical way, I was trying to find out “what the fluid flow along the nerve channels? What is the memory storage device of human cells? Or of any cells? Can they remember? Obviously they must remember, but how do they?”
Thusly, from an understanding of atomic and molecular phenomenon that resulted in him flunking the course (his admission), Hubbard developed the concept of engrams on which Dianetics is based.
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