Scans of 1950 promo for Dianetics

OTBT · Apr 26, 2010

Scans of 1950 promo for Dianetics

Strangelove for Science Fiction: Early Promotion for L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics

Early Promotion for L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics

1950 was the year when L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics was first published.
Dianetics was heavily promoted in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction,
edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., a magazine that was central to the so-called
"Golden Age" (late 1930s through the 1950s) of the science fiction genre in the
United States.

Campbell enthusiastically embraced Dianetics, later reversing his position in
1951. Using the concepts begun with Dianetics Hubbard would go on to found
the Church of Scientology in 1953.

Reproduced below are pages from issues of Astounding Science Fiction from the
year 1950. Click on the pictures for bigger, more readable images.

L. Ron Hubbard's "To The Stars" on the cover
of Astounding Science Fiction, February 1950.

Astounding Science Fiction, August 1950.
Back page advertisement for Dianetics.

"This book reveals the results of fifteen years of study and research on the
working of the human mind. Tackling the problem by the scientific method, the
author has discovered what he believes to be the source of all mental and
psychosomatic ills, and has developed a technique of Dianetic Therapy that has
work successfully for everyone one of the two hundred and seventy unselected
cases treated and tested."

Astounding Science Fiction, November 1950.
Back page advertisement.

"The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation has established Departments in
several cities; further Departments are scheduled to open soon." Addresses are
listed in New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Astounding Science Fiction, November 1950.
Subscription advertisement inside front cover.

"DIANETICS started in Astounding SCIENCE FICTION. It is not the first, nor will it
be the last time, Astounding SCIENCE FICTION precedes science generally."
Indeed. Cost of a one-year subscription to Astounding: $2.50.

Astounding Science Fiction, September 1950.
Back page advertisement.

"Successfully Treat Complex, Obscure Symptoms" sounds like it would make a
good t-shirt slogan.

the anti · Apr 26, 2010

Re: Scans of 1950 promo for Dianetics

something I found on J. A. Winter M.D. on google

Departure in Dianetics ( Dr JA Winter leaves movement ) Time Mag sept 3, 1951 (first freezoner)

ryangiggs · Apr 26, 2010

Re: Scans of 1950 promo for Dianetics

Hmmn. Is that an Arian/Homo Novis cover pic?

So what ever happened to the "pro and con" followup in the later editions?

Anonymous · Apr 26, 2010

Re: Scans of 1950 promo for Dianetics

Nioce find OP!

the anti;1231429 said:

something I found on J. A. Winter M.D. on google

Departure in Dianetics ( Dr JA Winter leaves movement ) Time Mag sept 3, 1951 (first freezoner)

I've been trying to find something similar on when John W Campbell, Jr disowned Hubbard. anyone ever seen that?

Incredulicide · Mar 21, 2014

Harlan Ellison mentioned Campbell in this interview:

Excerpt from "Saturday Evening Wings", Nov.-Dec. '78 issue.

Wings Interview: The Real Harlan Ellison (page 32).

[Snipped -- Biographical information ]
[Snipped -- earlier parts of the interview]

On Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard:

Ellison: Scientology is bullshit! Man, I was there the night L. Ron Hubbard invented it, for Christ Sakes!
I was sitting in a room with L. Ron Hubbard and a bunch of other science fiction writers. L. Ron Hubbard was famous among science fiction writers because he was the first one to have an electric typewriter.

Wings: He claimed to have written _Dianetics_ in a weekend, and nobody can deny it.

Ellison: That's true. He wrote _Dianetics_ in one weekend, and you know how he used to write? He used to take a roll of white paper, like paper you wrap fish in. He had it on the wall, and he would roll it into the typewriter and he would begin typing. When he was done, he would tear it off and leave it as one whole long novel.
We were sitting around one night... who else was there? Alfred Bester, and Cyril Kornbluth, and Lester Del Rey, and Ron Hubbard, who was making a penny a word, and had been for years. And he said "This bullshit's got to stop!" He says, "I gotta get money." He says, "I want to get rich".

Wings: He is also supposed to have said on that same night: "The question is not how to make a million dollars, but how to keep it."

Ellison: Right. And somebody said, "why don't you invent a new religion? They're always big." We were clowning! You know, "Become Elmer Gantry! You'll make a fortune!" He says, "I'm going to do it." Sat down, stole a little bit from Freud, stolee a little bit from Jung, a little bit from Alder, a little bit of encounter therapy, pre-Janov Primal Screaming, took all that bullshit, threw it all together, invented a few new words, because he was a science fiction writer, you know, "engrams" and "regression", all that bullshit.

And then he conned John Campbell, who was crazy as a thousand battlefields. I mean, he believed any goddamned thing. He really believed blacks were inferior. I mean he really believed that. He was also very nervous when I was in his office because I was a Jew. You know, he was afraid maybe I would spring horns or something.
Anyhow, the way he conned John was that he had J. A. Winter, who was a doctor, who was a close friend of John's, and he got him to run this article on Dianetics, the new science of mental health.

Wings: Dianometry was the first article, I believe.

Ellison: Right. And science fiction fans will go for any goddamm thing. They'll believe anything, man, they will believe in the abominable snowman and the Bermuda Triangle, in Pyramid Power, in EST, in Scientology, in the Second Coming, they'll believe in any goddamm thing, they don't give a shit. They go to see _Star Wars_; they think it is for real!
So science fiction fans picked it up, they began proselytizing, he started making money, when he had made enough money he was able to spread out a little more, then he got more cuckoos, you know, pre-Charlie Manson assholes that had no place else to go, and he began talking to these loons as if _Dianetics_ really meant something. Then he wanted to get tax-exempt status, so he called it "The Church of Scientology".

Now, they've gotten so big that they own property all over the country, and it is impossible to stop it. They infiltrated the FBI, they infiltrated the tax department, ... the funny thing is, Ron Hubbard and I still occasionally communicate with each other. Every once in a while, a couple or three times a year, we exchange letters. And I write to him, you know, and I say, "Hey Ron, when is this bullshit going to cease? These cuckoos are really driving me crazy! They come around the house with pamphlets!" And he writes me back, and he says, "It's the good work, it's the good work."

It's all very funny stuff. He was going to write a new story for me for the last _Dangerous Visions_, but I guess he got too busy counting his money. I don't know.

Anonylemmi · Mar 22, 2014

"crazy as a thousand battlefields"
What an awesome line.

Ogsonofgroo · Mar 22, 2014

Indeed!
Could be worked into some great picket signage, like, erm, 'LRon the Con~ Crazy as a thousand Battlefields!' Hell, it stands on its own too! (t-shirt anyone?)

Anonylemmi · Mar 22, 2014

I want the tattoo.

The Wrong Guy · May 6, 2017

Ah, the reveries of 1950: When Dianetics was in full bloom | The Underground Bunker

By Jeffrey Augustine, May 6, 2017

Quote:

Let’s start with a fun piece from October 1950:

Eleanor Dove writhes in a Dianetics reverie while a photographer from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographs her ecstatic swoon. Under the control of a Dianetics auditor, Eleanor is re-experiencing engrams lodged in her reactive mind during a public demonstration.

In the next demonstration we witness Thea Van Runkele being Dianetically processed during a two-hour ordeal. Her “professional auditor” is her husband and fellow Dianeticist Larry Van Runkele.

During Thea’s trip back into childhood and into the “basic-basic” prenatal engrams she received in the womb, she too writhes in the agony of what surely must be the unspeakable things done to her as a fetus. Perhaps, as described in the pages of Dianetics, mother got out the knitting needles?

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/05/06/ah-the-reveries-of-1950-when-dianetics-was-in-full-bloom/

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Scans of 1950 promo for Dianetics

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