Scientology’s E-Meter and Its Relationship to Science

To name L. Ron Hubbard a prolific author is an excessive understatement. From 1934 to 1940, he recurrently penned 70,000 to 100,000 phrases monthly of pulp fiction below 15 completely different pseudonyms revealed in varied magazines. To not be constrained by style, he wrote zombie mysteries, historic fiction, pirate journey tales, and westerns.

However by the spring of 1938, Hubbard began honing his craft in science fiction. The publishers of Astounding Science Fiction approached Hubbard to jot down tales that targeted on individuals, somewhat than robots and machines. His first story, “The Harmful Dimension,” was a light-hearted story a couple of professor who may teleport wherever within the universe just by considering “Equation C.”

How Scientologists use the E-meter

Twelve years and greater than 100 tales later, Hubbard revealed a really completely different essay within the Might 1950 problem of Astounding Science Fiction: “Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science.” Within the essay, Hubbard recounts his personal journey to find what he known as the reactive thoughts and the “know-how” to beat it. The essay was the companion piece to his concurrently launched e-book, Dianetics: The Trendy Science of Psychological Well being, which in flip grew to become the muse for a brand new faith: the Church of Scientology.

Marrying know-how with spirituality, Hubbard launched the electropsychometer, or E-meter, within the Nineteen Fifties as a tool to assist his ministers measure the minds, our bodies, and spirits of church members. In line with church dogma, the minds of recent initiates are impaired by “engrams”—lingering traces of traumas, together with these from previous lives. An auditor purportedly makes use of the E-meter to determine and get rid of the engrams, which leads ultimately to the particular person’s reaching a state of being “clear.” Earlier than reaching this fascinating state, a church member is named a “preclear.”

To make use of the E-meter, a person grasps the steel cylinders whereas a gentle electrical present runs by means of them. A human auditor interprets the system’s readings.Whipple Museum of the Historical past of Science/College of Cambridge

Throughout an auditing session, a preclear holds the E-meter’s two steel cylinders, one in every hand, as a small electrical present flows by means of them. The auditor asks a collection of questions whereas working two dials on the E-meter. The bigger dial adjusts the resistance; the smaller dial controls the amplification of the needle. The auditor doesn’t learn particular measurements on the meter however somewhat interprets the needle’s motion because the preclear responds to the questions.

The church’s 2014 Tremendous Bowl advert, which invitations viewers to “think about science and faith connecting,” provides a glamorized glimpse of an auditing session:

Scientology Religious Expertise – Tremendous Bowl Business 2014youtu.be

In his writings, Hubbard described the E-meter as a Wheatstone bridge, {an electrical} circuit designed in 1833 by Samuel Hunter Christie to measure an unknown resistance. (Sir Charles Wheatstone popularized the system a couple of decade later, and his title caught.) Technically, the E-meter is a modified ohm meter measuring the galvanic pores and skin response of the person—modifications within the pores and skin’s electrical resistance, that’s. Galvanic pores and skin response is an instance of the sympathetic nervous system in motion. It’s how your physique robotically responds to numerous stimuli, resembling your coronary heart beating sooner once you’re scared.

Rejection of L. Ron Hubbard’s claims

Hubbard was not the primary to make use of electrical gadgets to measure the sympathetic nervous system and take into account it a mirrored image of the thoughts. As early as 1906, psychologist Carl Jung was noting modifications in pores and skin resistance in response to emotionally charged phrases. By the Twenties, John Larson was utilizing the polygraph to interrogate police topics.

Hubbard sought approval for his concepts from the medical institution, however nearly instantly, organizations such because the American Psychological Affiliation rejected his theories as pseudoscience. Actually, a number of students seeking to dismiss the validity of the E-meter in contrast it to lie detectors, which additionally require human operators to interpret the outcomes—and which have additionally been categorized as being of doubtful worth by the American Psychological Affiliation and the U.S. Nationwide Academy of Sciences.

L. Ron Hubbard, proven in 1999, was a prolific sci-fi author earlier than launching Dianetics and the Church of Scientology.Yves Forestier/Sygma/Getty Photographs

Authorities authorities additionally condemned the church’s claims. In 1951, for instance, the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners accused considered one of Hubbard’s foundations of instructing drugs with no license. Just a few years later, the Meals and Drug Administration seized vitamin dietary supplements that Hubbard claimed protected towards radiation.

One of the vital dramatic episodes occurred in 1963, when U.S. Marshals raided Hubbard’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., and confiscated greater than 100 E-meters. The FDA had issued a warrant that accused the church of falsely claiming that the gadgets had each bodily and psychological therapeutic properties. The lawsuit stretched on for years, and the court docket initially discovered towards the church. On enchantment, a choose dominated that the E-meter might be used for spiritual functions so long as it clearly displayed this warning label: “The E-Meter isn’t medically or scientifically helpful for the prognosis, therapy or prevention of illness. It isn’t medically or scientifically able to enhancing the well being or bodily capabilities of anybody.”

Scientologists modified this warning, as a substitute printing this advisory on their devices: “The Hubbard Electrometer is a non secular artifact. By itself, this meter does nothing. It’s for spiritual use by college students and ministers of the church in confessionals and pastoral counseling solely.”

The E-meter as a recruitment software

As Scientology unfold exterior the USA, assaults on the E-meter and the church continued. In Australia, Kevin Anderson wrote the official “Report of the Board of Enquiry Into Scientology” for the state of Victoria. Revealed in 1965, it grew to become generally known as the Anderson Report. He didn’t mince phrases: “Scientology is evil; its methods evil; its apply a critical menace to the group, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents sadly deluded and sometimes mentally sick.”

In 1961, Hubbard wrote of his latest discovery that the E-meter requires the auditor to have “command worth” over the particular person being audited.Keystone Press/Alamy

Chapter 14 of the report is dedicated to the E-meter, which Anderson seen as a strong enabler of Scientology. After describing its development and use, the report provides knowledgeable witness testimony negating Scientologists’ claims, primarily based on the trendy understanding {of electrical} resistance. It then factors out particular claims that stretch credulity, resembling how the E-meter supposedly helps preclears recall incidents trillions of years prior to now all the way down to the exact second. The report quotes from Hubbard’s written recollection of getting obtained an implant “43,891,832,611,177 years, 344 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes and 40 seconds from 10:02.30 P.M. Daylight Greenwich Time Might 9, 1963.”

The report additionally cites the Hubbard Communications Workplace Bulletin of 30 November 1961, by which Hubbard admits: “An E-meter has a frailty I’ve simply found. It operates provided that the auditor has some, even small, command worth over the laptop [preclear], and operates hardly in any respect when the auditor has no command worth over the laptop.” Given this imbalance between the auditor and the preclear, Anderson reasoned, the E-meter is a strong software for manipulation. “Fears of its talents hold [preclears] in fixed subjection,” the report states. “Its use could be so manipulated by cunningly phrased questions that nearly any desired outcome could be obtained, and it’s used unscrupulously to dominate college students and employees alike. All of the evil options of scientology are intensified the place the E-meter is concerned.”

Hubbard’s response? The report was merely a kangaroo court docket that already knew its conclusions earlier than the primary witness was known as.

The E-meter patents by no means talked about faith

Though Hubbard didn’t invent the E-meter, he impressed its creation, got here up with a transistorized, battery-powered unit, and obtained a number of patents for later variations.

In his patents (see, for instance, U.S. Patent No. 3,290,589, “System for Measuring and Indicating Modifications in Resistance of a Residing Physique”), Hubbard caught to technical descriptions of the circuitry. The patents made no claims about studying an individual’s ideas or utilizing the system for spiritual functions. However Hubbard’s personal writings are chock-full of technobabble, intermingling precise technical phrases with statements which are demonstrably false. One in all my favorites is his differentiation of the resistances of lifeless female and male our bodies: 12,500 ohms and 5,000 ohms, respectively.

Clearly, from the point of view of up to date science, the claims that the E-meter unlocks past-life traumas can’t be verified or replicated. The devices themselves are imprecise and unreliable, the readouts relying on issues like how the cylinders are grasped. And naturally, the auditor can interpret the outcomes any manner they select. Scientists and psychologists routinely denounce Scientology as quackery, but on the similar time, spiritual students discover parallels to older, well-established faiths.

Centuries in the past, Copernicus and Galileo posited a brand new science that flew within the face of spiritual beliefs. L. Ron Hubbard turned that concept on its head and based a brand new faith purportedly primarily based on science, and he positioned the E-meter because the system for entangling know-how and spirituality.

A part of a persevering with collection historic artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of know-how.

An abridged model of this text seems within the April 2024 print problem as “The Scientology Machine.”