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Scientology: A History of Man
Book by Hubbard, L. Ron
- GenresReligionPhilosophy
210 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1952
3 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
L. Ron Hubbard
2,001 books656 followersL. Ron Hubbard is universally acclaimed as the single most influential author and humanitarian of this modern age. His definitive works on the mind and spirit—comprising over 350 million copies in circulation and more than 40 international bestsellers—have resulted in a legacy benefiting millions and a movement spanning all cultures.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 29, 2016
The first line of the introduction says it all: "This is a cold-blooded and factual account of your last 76 trillion years." It captures L. Ron Hubbard's pathological compulsion to lie, his inane science fiction writing, and the bravado with which he presents it all. It is a bit surprising that this book is freely offered to anyone (well, it's $30 on Scientology's website, but you can find it cheaper elsewhere), as it contains the deep-time nonsense that we normally think of as being revealed in the upper OT levels. There's no mention of Xemu/Xenu, but you learn of other events, technologies and places in the long-distant past lives of our eternal thetans. For example, we learn that Arsclycus was "an old society built in space, with no planet, in which there were many roads, turrets, castles, and so forth. People were brought in and put to work there. Every time they died, they found themselves standing back in the same line again and were slipped back into a body for about ten thousand consecutive lifetimes until Arsclycus blew up."
A good chunk of LRH's explanatory efforts go toward describing the history of the Genetic Entity (GE), a component of our physical (MEST) bodies that carries memories of our evolutionary history. It's separate from the thetan that comprises your true identity, but it can affect your body and show up in auditing nonetheless. The GE is passed from body to body, life after life. After dismissing Darwin (who is lumped in with Lysenko) and evolutionary theory in general as "a sprawling and contradictory mass of poorly compiled data", Hubbard has the audacity to present his own invented, cockamamie history of man's evolution. Basically, we all started as clams. "Can you imagine a clam sitting on the beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?" LRH is quite confident that you, the uninitiated, will have a clenched and sore jaw just from reading that last sentence. I'm equally confident that your jaw is just fine, thank you.
After that unsubstantiated clam, he mentions that barnacles in the clam's shell eventually became our teeth, and that teeth problems can be resolved by auditing back to this time. Then he mentions birds, which were not part of our evolutionary path, but often dropped us clams, instilling a fear of falling. Dinosaurs are skipped completely, but next thing you know we are sloths. Then we're apes. Then we're something like "The Piltdown Man", which is hilarious because Hubbard chose to name a specimen that was exposed as a hoax the year after this book was published in 1952. It has not been corrected as of this 2007 edition. Following that we are cavemen, and auditing back to that time can help with relationship problems.
The rest of the book details the various things that happened to our thetans (souls) over the past 76 trillion year "whole track" - these incidents being the most important to address, since they involve our true selves. Here Hubbard invents an absurd array of machines and behaviors used on ancient planets to trap, torture, confuse and burden our thetans with false memories and insecurities. Apparently our immaterial thetans can be affected with electronic devices that haven't yet been invented on Earth, but were used extensively in the past. LRH frequently makes reference to supernatural effects a thetan is capable of, such as "knock[ing] off hats at fifty yards and read[ing] books a couple of countries away..." Elsewhere he says the energy from a thetan can explode eyeballs or cut a body in half. Any one of these abilities demonstrated could make Scientology appear credible, but Hubbard warns followers that such displays would only make it harder for others to get up the bridge, so don't try to perform miracles to impress the "sleeping sapiens". CONVENIENT.
Here's an example paragraph, chosen at random, showing the dense patois of Scientology terms: "There is no subject more interesting than that of THETA TRAPS. It is of vast interest to any invader. It is of vaster interest to your preclear. How can you trap a thetan? By curiosity, by giving him awards and prizes (of an implant), by retractor screens, by mock-ups, by ornate buildings which he will enter unsuspectingly only to be 'electroniced down,' by many such means the thetan is reduced from KNOWING to a colonist, a slave, a MEST body." (p. 113)
As with any Scientology work, there's a sizeable glossary in the back to explain terms as Hubbard used them. This glossary is 59 pages for a 147-page book. There's a combination of mid-century phrases L. Ron Hubbard favored (I'm sure glad they defined "hot papa suits"), common words anyone should understand (thanks for clearing up "coupled", "fraction" and "thin air"!), as well as the elaborate network of Scientology speak. Here's a particularly daft one: "DED: DED stands for DEserveD action, an incident the preclear does to another dynamic and for which he has no motivator - i.e., he punishes or hurts or wrecks something the like of which has never hurt him. Now he must justify the incident. He will use the things which didn't happen to him. He claims that the object of his injury really deserved it, hence the word, which is a sarcasm." DED stands out for its bizarre abbreviation and sarcastic meaning-the-opposite-of-what-it-intends-to-mean, but also encodes a sinister policy of blaming the victims within Scientology. If you complain of any wrongs done to you, that just means you're covering up something equally bad or worse you did to someone else first.
I could go on for a long time, but I'll just say there's some pretty entertaining claptrap here if you're a glutton for this brand of punishment. I'm just constantly floored at how boldly and self-assuredly L. Ron Hubbard lied, making reference to research that obviously never took place, factual claims that are clearly false, and sci-fi scenarios as unbelievable as they are poorly written.
A good chunk of LRH's explanatory efforts go toward describing the history of the Genetic Entity (GE), a component of our physical (MEST) bodies that carries memories of our evolutionary history. It's separate from the thetan that comprises your true identity, but it can affect your body and show up in auditing nonetheless. The GE is passed from body to body, life after life. After dismissing Darwin (who is lumped in with Lysenko) and evolutionary theory in general as "a sprawling and contradictory mass of poorly compiled data", Hubbard has the audacity to present his own invented, cockamamie history of man's evolution. Basically, we all started as clams. "Can you imagine a clam sitting on the beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?" LRH is quite confident that you, the uninitiated, will have a clenched and sore jaw just from reading that last sentence. I'm equally confident that your jaw is just fine, thank you.
After that unsubstantiated clam, he mentions that barnacles in the clam's shell eventually became our teeth, and that teeth problems can be resolved by auditing back to this time. Then he mentions birds, which were not part of our evolutionary path, but often dropped us clams, instilling a fear of falling. Dinosaurs are skipped completely, but next thing you know we are sloths. Then we're apes. Then we're something like "The Piltdown Man", which is hilarious because Hubbard chose to name a specimen that was exposed as a hoax the year after this book was published in 1952. It has not been corrected as of this 2007 edition. Following that we are cavemen, and auditing back to that time can help with relationship problems.
The rest of the book details the various things that happened to our thetans (souls) over the past 76 trillion year "whole track" - these incidents being the most important to address, since they involve our true selves. Here Hubbard invents an absurd array of machines and behaviors used on ancient planets to trap, torture, confuse and burden our thetans with false memories and insecurities. Apparently our immaterial thetans can be affected with electronic devices that haven't yet been invented on Earth, but were used extensively in the past. LRH frequently makes reference to supernatural effects a thetan is capable of, such as "knock[ing] off hats at fifty yards and read[ing] books a couple of countries away..." Elsewhere he says the energy from a thetan can explode eyeballs or cut a body in half. Any one of these abilities demonstrated could make Scientology appear credible, but Hubbard warns followers that such displays would only make it harder for others to get up the bridge, so don't try to perform miracles to impress the "sleeping sapiens". CONVENIENT.
Here's an example paragraph, chosen at random, showing the dense patois of Scientology terms: "There is no subject more interesting than that of THETA TRAPS. It is of vast interest to any invader. It is of vaster interest to your preclear. How can you trap a thetan? By curiosity, by giving him awards and prizes (of an implant), by retractor screens, by mock-ups, by ornate buildings which he will enter unsuspectingly only to be 'electroniced down,' by many such means the thetan is reduced from KNOWING to a colonist, a slave, a MEST body." (p. 113)
As with any Scientology work, there's a sizeable glossary in the back to explain terms as Hubbard used them. This glossary is 59 pages for a 147-page book. There's a combination of mid-century phrases L. Ron Hubbard favored (I'm sure glad they defined "hot papa suits"), common words anyone should understand (thanks for clearing up "coupled", "fraction" and "thin air"!), as well as the elaborate network of Scientology speak. Here's a particularly daft one: "DED: DED stands for DEserveD action, an incident the preclear does to another dynamic and for which he has no motivator - i.e., he punishes or hurts or wrecks something the like of which has never hurt him. Now he must justify the incident. He will use the things which didn't happen to him. He claims that the object of his injury really deserved it, hence the word, which is a sarcasm." DED stands out for its bizarre abbreviation and sarcastic meaning-the-opposite-of-what-it-intends-to-mean, but also encodes a sinister policy of blaming the victims within Scientology. If you complain of any wrongs done to you, that just means you're covering up something equally bad or worse you did to someone else first.
I could go on for a long time, but I'll just say there's some pretty entertaining claptrap here if you're a glutton for this brand of punishment. I'm just constantly floored at how boldly and self-assuredly L. Ron Hubbard lied, making reference to research that obviously never took place, factual claims that are clearly false, and sci-fi scenarios as unbelievable as they are poorly written.
November 22, 2007
The best one yet. This book covers the fact that you are actually a thetan who is trillions of years old and immortal, and that you are trapped in a body. Oh, and that you can move things with your mind and generate electrical charges.
Pure entertainment.
Pure entertainment.
Read
September 22, 2024It’s too bad L. Ron Hubbard used this to swindle people and make bank cause a lot of this would be pretty fun lore for some science fiction book or film if it wasn’t presented as fact. Quite possibly the most fascinating book I’ve read in terms of studying a belief system.
May 12, 2021
The glossary! I just really love that “road, get the show on the” is defined on page 215 and “show on the road, get the” on page 216. See also: “squares, three” on page 218 and “three squares” on page 224.
June 5, 2009
Only good for a laugh, but then you remember that people actually take this stuff seriously. Then you want to throw the book across the room.
November 16, 2021
An aggressively bizarre and strange experience
“Occasionally people have told me that I should not release the data contained in this volume because there would be a repercussion throughout the country which would ruin Dianetics forever.”
So the basic premise with Dianetics was that the resolution of past incidents/traumas (which included prenatal experiences) through its brand of therapy would rehabilitate the body. As it developed into Scientology this was extended to past life traumas and rehabilitating the thetan (the real you that is akin to the soul/spirit) which in doing so would unlock supernatural and eventually God like powers.
According to Hubbard there are three main sources of these past life incidents – those at the cellular (and even atomic) level, those at the genetic level (which includes all the traumas the human body has as a result of evolution) and finally those incidents that were experienced by the thetan itself in its various lives. With the last two being the focus of the book in the form of brief descriptions of them and the impact it has on current people/thetans.
In discussing these events it really is a wild ride. Regarding the genetic line for instance clams play a central role in human evolution, with the dual hemispheres of the brain being a product of the dual muscles of the clam and things such as right/left handedness and tear ducts being a product of the emotional turmoil of the clams. However, this is comparatively tame to the discussions of incidents from the theta line.
These incidents are an eclectic list of events that are akin to a sci-fi version of Dante’s Hell, with there being all kinds of different devices, torture machines and traps created and used by thetans and electronic invader forces against other thetans, not to mention a whole host of actions thetans committed against humans – right up to “blanketing” and forcing them to have to have sex with one another for the thetan’s gratification.
This short review of this short book cant really do it justice.
As a final note regarding those God-like powers – which are described in this book:
So, again, as a final note on this chapter, let’s not go upsetting governments and putting on a show to “prove” anything to Homo Sapiens for a while – it’s a horrible temptation to knock off hats at fifty yards and read books a couple of countries away and get into the rotogravure section and the Hearst Weeklies – but you’ll just make it tough on somebody else who is trying to get across this bridge. Let sleeping Sapiens snore in the bulk for yet awhile. Then meet some place and decide what to do about him and his two penny wars, his insane and his prisons. Tell people who want to invalidate all this, “Your criticism is very just. It’s only fantasy.” Cure up the lame and halt and the incompetent with whatever display of technique you need. Protect theta clearing until there are a few
“Occasionally people have told me that I should not release the data contained in this volume because there would be a repercussion throughout the country which would ruin Dianetics forever.”
So the basic premise with Dianetics was that the resolution of past incidents/traumas (which included prenatal experiences) through its brand of therapy would rehabilitate the body. As it developed into Scientology this was extended to past life traumas and rehabilitating the thetan (the real you that is akin to the soul/spirit) which in doing so would unlock supernatural and eventually God like powers.
According to Hubbard there are three main sources of these past life incidents – those at the cellular (and even atomic) level, those at the genetic level (which includes all the traumas the human body has as a result of evolution) and finally those incidents that were experienced by the thetan itself in its various lives. With the last two being the focus of the book in the form of brief descriptions of them and the impact it has on current people/thetans.
In discussing these events it really is a wild ride. Regarding the genetic line for instance clams play a central role in human evolution, with the dual hemispheres of the brain being a product of the dual muscles of the clam and things such as right/left handedness and tear ducts being a product of the emotional turmoil of the clams. However, this is comparatively tame to the discussions of incidents from the theta line.
These incidents are an eclectic list of events that are akin to a sci-fi version of Dante’s Hell, with there being all kinds of different devices, torture machines and traps created and used by thetans and electronic invader forces against other thetans, not to mention a whole host of actions thetans committed against humans – right up to “blanketing” and forcing them to have to have sex with one another for the thetan’s gratification.
This short review of this short book cant really do it justice.
As a final note regarding those God-like powers – which are described in this book:
So, again, as a final note on this chapter, let’s not go upsetting governments and putting on a show to “prove” anything to Homo Sapiens for a while – it’s a horrible temptation to knock off hats at fifty yards and read books a couple of countries away and get into the rotogravure section and the Hearst Weeklies – but you’ll just make it tough on somebody else who is trying to get across this bridge. Let sleeping Sapiens snore in the bulk for yet awhile. Then meet some place and decide what to do about him and his two penny wars, his insane and his prisons. Tell people who want to invalidate all this, “Your criticism is very just. It’s only fantasy.” Cure up the lame and halt and the incompetent with whatever display of technique you need. Protect theta clearing until there are a few
December 3, 2008
Scientology can not only cure all, but pushed man into a new stage of evolution called "homo novis" and all kinds of quack claims including man evolved from clams.
Total crap.
EDIT: A Scienologist corrected me on the clam thing. So while it doesn't say man evolved from clams (I had to dig it out and do a bit of word clearing) I guess I do have a past life incident as a clam.
Whilst I had my book and my notes out I figure I'd share some other things that are in fact in the book.
Auditing makes your heart stronger, cures arthritis and physical injuries. "Running facsimile one" 'eradicates' asthma, cold chills and sinus trouble. (Not even Kevin Trudeau could get away publishing these claims in a book.)
Bad auditing can kill. :O
Showing a pre-clear a simple hand gesture will cause their jaw to lock.
Once you become clear, you bump up to a new spot on the evolutionary track (homo-novis) but don't prove your new-found abilities to those lower humans. They'll decide what to do with us humans later.
Electronics make people insane.
Chapter 9 proves religious incompatibility with Hindus; thus Scientology is NOT compatible with all religions.
Total crap.
EDIT: A Scienologist corrected me on the clam thing. So while it doesn't say man evolved from clams (I had to dig it out and do a bit of word clearing) I guess I do have a past life incident as a clam.
Whilst I had my book and my notes out I figure I'd share some other things that are in fact in the book.
Auditing makes your heart stronger, cures arthritis and physical injuries. "Running facsimile one" 'eradicates' asthma, cold chills and sinus trouble. (Not even Kevin Trudeau could get away publishing these claims in a book.)
Bad auditing can kill. :O
Showing a pre-clear a simple hand gesture will cause their jaw to lock.
Once you become clear, you bump up to a new spot on the evolutionary track (homo-novis) but don't prove your new-found abilities to those lower humans. They'll decide what to do with us humans later.
Electronics make people insane.
Chapter 9 proves religious incompatibility with Hindus; thus Scientology is NOT compatible with all religions.
March 31, 2010
I agree with others who have reviewed this, that it is the biggest load of crap imaginable. In fact, this book almost makes Dianetics look like real science. That's why I'm giving it five stars, because its entertainment value is so immense. I mean, Scientology: A History of Man is the type of book you would think Scientologists would try to suppress, because it reveals Hubbard for the loon that he was. Somehow, though, Scientologist actually attempt to defend this one. Amazing...
September 9, 2018
With lots of assertions and no citations to support them, this felt more like preaching than teaching.
August 31, 2018
Absolutely hysterical!
I always know hilarity's about to ensue whenever I crack open an L. Ron Hubbard book, and, boy oh boy, this did not disappoint! Everyone should deep dive and read his stuff, as he was the Godfrey Ho/Ed Wood of literary disasterpieces. If you like narrative incompetence, unsubstantiated claims, lines of logic that only get stranger as you go on and an auteur whom absolutely personifies himself in his work, then Hubbard is the writer for you.
Seriously, plodding prose and repetitive narrative aside, this was a gift that keeps on giving (one simply must read his anecdote about "The Weeper").
Five stars, no question!
Okay, well, I guess only like three chapters have anything to do with history... or even man... so I guess I'll just settle on one and call it a day.
I always know hilarity's about to ensue whenever I crack open an L. Ron Hubbard book, and, boy oh boy, this did not disappoint! Everyone should deep dive and read his stuff, as he was the Godfrey Ho/Ed Wood of literary disasterpieces. If you like narrative incompetence, unsubstantiated claims, lines of logic that only get stranger as you go on and an auteur whom absolutely personifies himself in his work, then Hubbard is the writer for you.
Seriously, plodding prose and repetitive narrative aside, this was a gift that keeps on giving (one simply must read his anecdote about "The Weeper").
Five stars, no question!
Okay, well, I guess only like three chapters have anything to do with history... or even man... so I guess I'll just settle on one and call it a day.
September 13, 2020
Wholy unreadable in my opinion. History of Man was not even an original work by Hubbard. He stole the ideas from his son's ramblings after giving him hallucinogenics. THE TECH DOES NOT WORK. HUBBARD LIED ABOUT HIS DISCOVERIES. Disconnection ruins families. David Miscavage beats his staff. If you want out please look up The Aftermath Foundation. Help is out there and you do not have to stay.
April 3, 2021
This book explained so much to me!! It told me a lot of things that I wanted to know about. No other book in history has had this kind of specific information about where we have been and what we have been doing as beings.
November 23, 2024
Another Hubbard classic, definitely a more advanced read meant for Auditors-In-Training, though, but even then there's a lot of useful information to novices of Scientology. Lots of parallels to be made with other belief systems from New Thought to even Buddhism.
February 6, 2026
Not a classic history book.
February 9, 2018
Words fail me.
First paragraph: this is a factual account of your last 76 trillion years. The universe is 13 billion years old. Even if scientists were wrong by 77 billion years (!!!) this would be still be the falsest statement ever uttered.
Hubbard goes on to recount our history as The Piltdown Man- a hoax debunked after he wrote this.
How can any Scientologist rationalise this? Is this book the reason Hubbard scorns at traditional education? So as to avoid being exposed as the lying, delusional, rotten toothed buffoon that he is?
First paragraph: this is a factual account of your last 76 trillion years. The universe is 13 billion years old. Even if scientists were wrong by 77 billion years (!!!) this would be still be the falsest statement ever uttered.
Hubbard goes on to recount our history as The Piltdown Man- a hoax debunked after he wrote this.
How can any Scientologist rationalise this? Is this book the reason Hubbard scorns at traditional education? So as to avoid being exposed as the lying, delusional, rotten toothed buffoon that he is?
July 14, 2014
I'm sure this is one of the craziest books I ever have, and probably ever will, read. It shows you don't need to go into Scientology's secret OT teachings to get to the science fiction stuff. Here, Hubbard talks about past life incidents from the "genetic line", such as "the clam", and "The Piltdown man". Towards the end of the book there's a lot of incidents involving alien implants and things like between-life incidents where the thetan goes to a Martian control station and is given a "forgetter" to forget his old life. The fact that he refers to the Piltdown man as an evolutionary step doesn't do a lot of good for the book's credibility, as it was exposed as a hoax around the time this book was released. "A History of Man" certainly seems more like the result of a vivid imagination (and Hubbard's fiction shows he had a great imagination) on drugs than any groundbreaking scientific "research".
August 24, 2015
Whereas Dianetics had a catalogue of ideas that seem interesting to non-Scientologists on the grounds of understanding what a particular group of people believe, Scientology: A History of Man elevates that grounding even further by introducing the concept of Thetans, a non-Scientologist's (often) second favorite thing to talk about (the first being Xenu) when lauding the perceived inanities of the religion. Sadly, A History of Man does little to build upon the grand mythos a religion can contain. One would expect with such a title that we would be given some grand re-envisioning of the origin of humankind or given some kind of account pertaining to early history a la Ancient Aliens, but instead the book seeks to "teach" more about Auditing and as a result makes it difficult for a non-Scientologist to take Hubbard seriously. Disclaimer: laughter may occur amongst some readers, as well as facepalms.
April 25, 2016
This is one of the nuttiest books I have ever read. I gave it three stars, because although it's all hot air and bullshit, I DID enjoy reading it.
Scientology has gotten a lot of media attention recently, so I would hope more people are at least a little more familiar with it than they were a few years back. It might interest the reader to compare the list of "Theta Being abilities" to the people currently called "OT" or "Operating Thetan" (if I've gotten this wrong, I'm sure a true believer will be by soon to correct me). If Scientology and Dianetics truly did create super-beings, we'd all be standing in line at the nearest "Org" to get it. I've met Clears and OTs, and they appear to be no different than anyone else --- hardly the immortal and all-powerful creatures described in this book.
Scientology has gotten a lot of media attention recently, so I would hope more people are at least a little more familiar with it than they were a few years back. It might interest the reader to compare the list of "Theta Being abilities" to the people currently called "OT" or "Operating Thetan" (if I've gotten this wrong, I'm sure a true believer will be by soon to correct me). If Scientology and Dianetics truly did create super-beings, we'd all be standing in line at the nearest "Org" to get it. I've met Clears and OTs, and they appear to be no different than anyone else --- hardly the immortal and all-powerful creatures described in this book.
July 31, 2014
L. Ron Hubbard had an uncanny ability to create whole "realities" out of his own sense of aesthetics and marketing. In this book, L. Ron supplements the Darwinian theory of evolution by putting it into a larger context of one's development as a thetan.
There is an unabashed sense of make-believe to be found in the cosmology of Scientology. Imagine, if you could, the Buddha or Christ not just writing a book of their own; but several hundred books, all with a heavy imprint of their individual personality that their followers are expected to live with as a matter of principle. Hubbard accomplished this very thing.
Check this out, if ideas off the beaten path interest you. It's certainly not factual; but it's interesting.
There is an unabashed sense of make-believe to be found in the cosmology of Scientology. Imagine, if you could, the Buddha or Christ not just writing a book of their own; but several hundred books, all with a heavy imprint of their individual personality that their followers are expected to live with as a matter of principle. Hubbard accomplished this very thing.
Check this out, if ideas off the beaten path interest you. It's certainly not factual; but it's interesting.
January 13, 2011
By far, this is one of the shortest and easiest books in the Basics. This books serves as the buffer between The Dianetics books and the Scientology books. To summarize: it makes you want to gain more data and helps you to understand what you have been up to for the last trillion years and where you are headed.
July 2, 2016
As theology or psychology, absolute bunk. Super fun to read as a tourist in someone else's folly though.
December 20, 2015
excellent
March 29, 2016
In this startling history of the genetic line of mankind, Hubbard shows that humans evolved from clams...
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews