More About London Clearing Congress

I’d like to tell you something of the story of Dianetics and Scientology—some things I’ve never confided to anyone before.

Would you like to hear that? —L. Ron Hubbard

It was 18 October 1958, in London’s Royal Empire Society Hall. And with those words, L. Ron Hubbard began what would become his most famous lecture of all time. For here was his personal account of the long journey to bring about a new state of being Man had dreamed of for over 2,500 years…a story that could only be told by the man who lived it…The Story of Dianetics and Scientology.

As evident in Mr. Hubbard’s opening words, it was to be his most expansive statement to date on what motivated his quest to answer the riddles of Man. As for what prompted him to tell that story at this time and place, the first answer is obvious: Clearing.

It had been over a year since his last appearance in England and yet what now made this achievement possible had in fact begun during that previous trip. For it was then he developed processes to reach any case (Control, Communication and Havingness—London Congress on Nuclear Radiation, Control & Health) which, in turn, had prompted his development of new ways to teach auditors (training drills—Freedom Congress), which revolutionized auditor training.

But there was something more—and it had everything to do with why this was the time for that now legendary lecture. And while it may not be so obvious today, to those who were there, in 1958, it stood out like a beacon from the title alone: Dianetics.

Yes, in the year of 1958, clearing by others—using Scientology—had become a reality. But, as he explained:

“The first Clears were made in 1947, and then I tried to teach other people to do it. And very quickly and briskly, in ten years, was able to do that. Only took ten years, which is pretty good.”

Of course, 1947 predated the release of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Indeed, it was Mr. Hubbard’s initial development and practice of Dianetics from 1947 to 1949 (and the resultant demand from others to find out more so they, too, could audit) that prompted publication of Book One. Then again, if any in attendance were still under the misimpression that current success in clearing was attributable to newer processes of the past ten years, his next statement dispelled that notion permanently:

“The fact of clearing depended upon the skill of auditing, and that was the only real barrier!”

The significance of that discovery extended far beyond the resolution of auditor training. Because while those auditors were now making Clears, there was still the matter of speed: How rapidly could it be done? Moreover, if the barrier to clearing had been the “skill of the auditor,” then what was the actual workability of earlier processes which seemed to “not work” in the hands of unskilled auditors? Those were the questions that opened whole new vistas for clearing and, indeed, brought Mr. Hubbard full circle to the subject of Dianetics:

“I was rather red-faced last year to find out that I hadn’t known exactly what I was doing in 1947 when I made Clears. The remarkable thing about it is, in some unknowing, blundering way, I did know, but I couldn’t phrase it. I couldn’t describe it.”

All factors to clearing, each successive breakthrough from the very beginning to the present, were to provide the answer he had been looking for since 1947. More specifically, stemming from his discovery of the true source of mental image pictures, came an even more startling breakthrough that answered a lingering question concerning all those Clears—“perfectly stable Clears”—he had made so many years before:

“I couldn’t explain for ten years: What happened to the rest of the bank?”

The answer was not erasure. Rather, it was found in a word that marked the next great milestone of Dianetics and Scientology: Confronting.

Here, then, is the dramatic story of how Mr. Hubbard returned to the first procedures of 1947 Dianetics, applying the very latest Scientology technology. As for what that in turn created, it was a new wave of clearing Mr. Hubbard would later announce with the headline: “Something has happened!!!”

Moreover, that was only the beginning. Because capping it all, and extending to spheres far outside the auditing session, came the anatomy of confusion and order. It resolves the age-old riddle of creation, is the substance behind the motto “Bring Order” which now appears in every Hubbard Communications Office (HCO) and stands to this day as the guiding principle of what a Scientologist does.

So yes, the London Clearing Congress was the right time and place. For while it began with the past, The Story of Dianetics and Scientology, by the time it was finished L. Ron Hubbard had laid in place an even more dramatic story, one that continues to unfold every day: The Future of Scientology and the Western Civilization.