Author: Mohajer Azizi
Scientology; Its Origins and Beliefs (part 22)
1. Hubbard’s Division of the Human Mind
Hubbard believed that human beings suffer from many spiritual and psychological problems, and he considered the causes of some of these problems to lie in a person’s past and life experiences. Therefore, he undertook research in this area in order to identify the fundamental problem. On this basis, and following his investigations and experiments, he declared that he had reached an unknown point in the human mind in which all human pains and sufferings are stored.
After this claim, Hubbard, the founder of this school of thought, divided the human mind into two parts and assigned specific names to each of them: the Engram Bank and the Memory Bank. Each of these is introduced below:
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The Engram Bank (Repository)
The Engram Bank is the repository of all physical and emotional pains throughout a person’s life, and nothing is forgotten or lost from it.
All of these physical and emotional pains can strike a person again unless they are treated and removed through Dianetics psychotherapy. Engrams, and even the presence of a single engram in the Engram Bank, cause psychosomatic disorders. [1]
According to Hubbard, Dianetics eliminates all the pains of life. When pains are first filed and recorded in the Engram Bank and then again in the Memory Bank, all psychological illnesses are removed; stimuli are reactivated and revived, and the mental and physical existence of the person becomes energized. As a result, Dianetics frees the person’s full mind from pain.
Methods that reorganize past pains in a new way are among the other discoveries of Dianetics. Human beings unconsciously possess another process of recalling experiences that lies outside conscious awareness, and until now only a few people have become aware of it and used it without fully understanding it.
This process is called “return,” meaning that through Dianetics exploration, one travels back to past experiences. Dianetics, with full awareness and without pain, enables a person to journey through all periods of their life. The techniques presented in Dianetics remove the obstacles to this return.
The exclusive technique of psychotherapy is called the Dianetic reverie. A person who possesses this kind of professional psychotherapy is referred to as an “auditor.” The auditor directs the person’s attention to themselves and tells them to go to a particular part of their life, guiding them through different stages of their life. This guidance is different from mere remembering. All of this psychotherapy is a journey through periods of time in which no medication is used.
Hubbard believes that every person has a “time track” that begins with the start of life and ends with death, and this track contains a chain of events that is completed through recording and documentation. [2]
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The Standard (Normative) Memory Bank
The memory bank encompasses all of a person’s past perceptions. No perception lies outside this standard (normative) bank, and all characteristics of a perception, such as color, smell, and taste; are stored within it. The “I” is not able to access the standard memory bank, and the main reason for this is the reactive information that restricts parts of the standard bank.
The inner “I” [3] of a person who, through Scientology psychotherapy, has reached the degree of complete purity and clarity (the refined self), will be able to access all moments of his life without any difficulty, and to recall all emotional, sensory, and even olfactory characteristics of those moments.
The completion and expansion of the information in the standard memory bank is considered among the discoveries of Dianetics. The importance of this recall is among the other findings of this school. [4]
C: Critique and Refutation of the “Belief in the Influence of Engrams” from the Islamic Perspective
Prosperity and attaining happiness and joy are among the fundamental desires of human nature. Every person strives, in some manner, to achieve well-being and joy and to be freed from spiritual and physical problems. Scientology, in relation to this; namely ethical, spiritual, and physical problems and liberation from them; holds a monistic view that differs from all others. This school believes that human behavior and destiny are bound to only one factor, namely the existence of engrams in the mind and liberation from them. That is, in their view, faith and disbelief, intention and will, desire and sin have no effect on human destiny, and a person’s good destiny depends solely on erasing engrams from the mind’s engram bank. However, this view is completely contrary to the teachings of Islam. In the Islamic view, the human being is not a one-dimensional entity; rather, his behavior and destiny are the result of various factors, such as faith and disbelief, intention and will, the commanding self and the self-reproaching self, desire and satanic whisperings, lack of piety, sin and oppression, divine decree and trial; all of which play important and appropriate roles in determining a person’s good or bad destiny.
To be continued…
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References:
- . Scientology–Dianetics, p. 45, cited from: Hubbard, L. Ron, Dianetics, Bridge Publications, p. 20.
- . Ibid., p. 25.
- . In this school, the “I” refers to the conscious, aware, and decision-making part of the human being; that is, the primary identity or the individual’s true self, which, in their view, is hidden beneath the layers of the “reactive mind.”
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. Ibid., p. 55.
