Talk:History of Dianetics and Scientology

What belongs here versus on the book's page
I think some things -- especially details on bestseller status and editions -- need to move to the D:MSMH page. Thanks. --Davidstrauss 03:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

First sentence
"The ideas of Dianetics originated in unpublished research L. Ron Hubbard supposedly performed in the 1920s and 1930s." <-- What sort of "unpublished research" would have been "performed" by Hubbard in the 1920s? This would make sense if it said 1930s and 1940s. --JWSchmidt 06:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, it may seem a very far-fetched claim that Hubbard was doing much in the way of serious "research" in the 1920s, when he would have been between 9 and 19 -- however, the Church of Scientology makes the claim which is even more far-fetched that LRH was "able to rope and break broncos with the best of them" soon after the age of three and a half, so the fact that the claim is far-fetched doesn't mean it isn't being made. And it's hardly difficult to verify that the Church claims the groundwork for Hubbard's later "discoveries" to have been laid during his (much-exaggerated) travels in Asia in his teenage years . -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The term "research" would more reasonably be applied to the "experiments" that are claimed to have taken place in the 30s and 40s. Maybe the first sentence could say something like, "Attempts have been made to trace the ideas of Dianetics to the travel-related experiences of L. Ron Hubbard in the 1920s and unpublished research supposedly performed in the 1930s and 1940s," with appropriate citations. --JWSchmidt 16:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * And why would any of those be WP:RS except as prefixed with "Hubbard said" or "The Church of Scientology says"? AndroidCat (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Under Emergence of Dianetics
Under The Emergence of Dianetics the fourth paragraph states "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:"

This is followed by an excerpt which says " With cooperation from some institutions, some psychiatrists, he [Hubbard] has worked on all types of cases."

Who is speaking in this excerpt? It is very unclear. The way the paragraph introduces the excerpt it is Hubbard who is writing this. However, why would Hubbard refer to himself as "he"?

Or was it Campbell who is making the statement?

Presently I am unable to locate the book from which this is quoted, but it seems more likely that this was a statement made later by Dr. Winter himself after reading and applying the Dianetic technique. Therefore I have added "Dr. Winter later wrote:" right before the excerpt. This seems to be the most likely solution. In the meantime I will attempt to locate more information on this. As it was, the excerpt provided nothing but confusion. CWatchman (talk) 17:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Dianetics as a pure psychotherapeutic technique
There are those who practice dianetics purely as a psychotherapeutic technique divorced from religion or Scientology. There are some Free Zone dianeticists who practice dianetics soley as psychotherapy. There is also a sprinkling of mental health therapists who have used dianetics in their practice. However, I have not heard if it is very widespread or the statistics of how many are using it in this manner.

I do know that there have been several waves of breakaway movements based on Dianetics, such as Free Zone Dianetic Therapy, Humanics, Dianology, E-Therapy, Idenics, Synergetics, and others. However, I am unsure exactly how each of these groups presented Dianetics.

I am curious as to what mental health professionals would call "dianetics" when used in their practice.

It would be interesting to know how many mental health workers or breakaway groups practice dianetics simply as a psychotherapeutic technique. CWatchman (talk) 17:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 17:59, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Merge needed
There are two other places in Wikipedia with fairly extensive content that belongs in this article: There are many bits in those two articles that are not in this one. Also, they tend to use more secondary sources and less of the primary sources of Hubbard-written or Church of Scientology websites which this article is lousy with. This article should be the main repository of content on the history of Dianetics while those other articles should have their histories trimmed per WP:Summary style. It would greatly assist in the maintenance and updating of the content to have it mostly in one place. Grorp (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Dianetics § History
 * Scientology § History (which also covers early Dianetics history)