Scientology, Ron Hubbard and Hypnosis 3 - Hubbard's Intentions

• Blog Archive by Topic

I have repeatedly run into talking points used to derail or disrupt posts and threads on the covert use of hypnosis by design in Scientology. I have had to deal with the same issues over and over.

So, to be efficient I am going to try to address the most frequently used points here and to have one place to route these ideas when they come up in the future.

To continue, this is the third post in a series. The first post addressed two claims.

Claim: hypnosis is outdated and no longer accepted by psychology.

Claim: Hypnosis has no scientific evidence and therefore as a claim presented without evidence can be rejected without examination.


The second post addressed one claim. 

Claim: You cannot "know" if Scientology founder Ron Hubbard knew a lot about hypnosis because he lied so much and he plagiarized so many ideas. 

I recommend that anyone interested in reading my response to those claims to read the appropriate post. I tried to be concise and thorough enough to address those issues clearly.

Claim: You cannot know the intention of Ron Hubbard. Some people forward this claim and believe Hubbard was alternating between good and evil or that he lied or contradicted himself too much to be deciphered or that Scientology is too filled with contradictions to be understood.

Fact: Hubbard was a pathological liar and frequently contradicted himself. That is true. He also had behavior that can be compared against his statements and we can decipher his true intentions from the combination of his claims AND behavior and his private communication.

Supporting Evidence: Hubbard made statements in his affirmations (private self-hypnosis commands intended for himself and no one else)  that I call the Rosetta Stone of Scientology because they help ex Scientologists decipher the information in Scientology.

I have them posted at Mockingbird's Nest as 

A Psychiatric View With Comments On The Admissions By Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1947)

I will put a few excerpts here to highlight Hubbard's intention regarding hypnosis and in general. To understand Scientology I absolutely recommend reading the post in full. These excerpts are just for this post on his intentions.

LRH is obviously L Ron Hubbard

LRH:Your psychology is good. You worked to darken your own children. This failure, with them, was only apparent. The evident lack of effectiveness was "ordered." The same psychology works perfectly on everyone else. You use it with great confidence. 

LRH: Material things are yours for the asking. Men are your slaves. Elemental spirits are your slaves. You are power among powers, light in the darkness, beauty in all. 

LRH : Your psychology is advanced and true and wonderful. It hypnotizes people. It predicts their emotions, for you are their ruler. 

LRH: No matter what lies you may tell others they have no physical effect on you of any kind.

LRH: Lord help women when you begin to fondle them. You are master of their bodies, master of their souls as you may consciously wish. You have no karma to pay for these acts. 

LRH: You can tell all the romantic tales you wish. You will remember them, you do remember them. But you know which ones were lies. You are so logical you will tell nothing which cannot be believed. 

LRH: You use the minds of men. They do not use your mind or affect it in any way. 

So, Hubbard in his private affirmations clearly described his "psychology" as such that it "hypnotizes" people and that men are his slaves and regarding women that he was master of their bodies and souls. He described himself as being able to lie and be both believed and he was immune to physical effects from his lies. He described himself as the ruler of people who uses the minds of men but they do not use or affect his mind. 

Imagine having these goals and using self-hypnosis commands repeatedly for years to bring these things into your mind. 

To gain more insight into Hubbard's intention I want to quote a letter he wrote to his wife Polly, who he called Skipper and it has come to be known as "The Skipper Letter" among Scientology watchers. It was written in 1938 after Hubbard allegedly wrote a manuscript entitled Excalibur that he hoped would give him fame. 

 "Living is a pretty grim joke, but a joke just the same. The entire function of man is to survive. The outermost limit of endeavour is creative work. Anything less is too close to simple survival until death happens along. So I am engaged in striving to maintain equilibrium sufficient to at least realize survival in a way to astound the gods. I turned the thing up so it's up to me to survive in a big way . . . Foolishly perhaps, but determined none the less, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned.  Things which stand too consistently in its way make me nervous. It’s a pretty big job. In a hundred years Roosevelt will have been forgotten — which gives some idea of the magnitude of my attempt. And all this boils and froths inside my head and I’m miserable when I am blocked.”

Here is a small excerpt from the article What Motivated L. Ron Hubbard? Historian Jon Atack Follows the Clues (posted at The Underground Bunker blog on August 26, 2013 

Hubbard added that he was going to “make Napoleon look like a punk” in comparison to the fame he would come to enjoy.

So, “Excalibur” was not about spiritual immortality, or spiritual anything. Hubbard felt that he had made contact with some underlying force in the universe, and that he was the only person ever so to do, but he wanted to exploit that force not for the good of the world (which finds no mention anywhere in this five-page letter), but to “smash” his name into history.

Believers will say that Hubbard changed his mind, but at the very end of his life, there is a telling confirmation of his “only goal.” When Hubbard dropped his body, almost fifty years later, he had failed to spend $648 million of the monies he’d extracted from the Dev-OTs. A paltry million went to the wife who had endured prison to protect him, far less to his surviving children. But half a billion dollars went to the Church of Spiritual Technology, which lists as its corporate purpose, “To perpetuate the name L. Ron Hubbard.” Not the “technology,” just the name, please note. end quote Jon Atack

Okay, it seems pretty clear to me that Hubbard wanted to control people by enslaving men via his lies, psychology and hypnosis and to control the souls and bodies of women by similar means. 

He gave us strong evidence in word and deeds that he sought these goals in life and fame in death. 

But I can add a bit more from his vast collection of statements in Scientology doctrine. 

Regarding wanting to control people with his lies and psychology that hypnotizes people:

Quotes from  Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique: 
[Quote] 
Now, if it comes to a pass where it's very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.
The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, "But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees."
You say, "Your professor of what?"
"My professor of physics."
"What school? How did he know?" Completely off track! You're no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you're arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won't know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis. The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they're not sure of their own name.
And at that point you say, "Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don't you?"
"Yes-anything!" And he'll go out and draw the water out of the well. 
[End Quote] 
 Ron Hubbard Lecture, 20 May 1952 "Decision."
source Lermanet.com

"If you can produce enough chaos — it says in a textbook on this subject — if you can produce enough chaos you can assume the total management of a psyche — if you can produce enough chaos.

The way you hypnotize people is to misalign them in their own control and realign them under your control, which necessitates a certain amount of chaos, don’t you see?

Now, the way to win through all of this is simply to let the guy have his stable data, if they are stable data and if they aren’t, let him have some more that are stable data and he’ll win and you’ll win.

In other words, you can take any sphere — any sphere which is relatively chaotic and throw almost any stable datum into it with enough of a statement and you will get an alignment of data on that stable datum. You see this clearly?

The whole society is liable to seize upon some stupid stable datum and thereafter this becomes a custom of some sort and you have the whole field of morals and mores and so forth stretching out before your view."

Hubbard, L. R. (1955, 23 August). Axiom 53: The Axiom Of The Stable Datum. Academy Lecture Series/Conquest of Chaos,   (CofC-2). Lecture conducted from Washington, DC.

"Another way to hypnotize somebody would be to put him in the middle of chaos, everything going in all directions, everybody shooting at him and suddenly throw him a stable datum, and make it a successful stable datum so that it’s all called off once — the moment he grabs this. And this gives you the entire formula of brainwashing: interrogate, question, lights, pain, upset, accusation, duress, fear, privation and we throw him the stable datum. We say, “If you’ll just adopt ‘Ughism’ which is the most wonderful thing in the world, all this will cease,” and finally the fellow says, “All right, I’m an ‘Ugh.’ ” Immediately you stop torturing him and pat him on the head and he’s all set.Ever after he would believe that the moment he deserted “Ughism,” he would be drowned in chaos and that “Ughism” alone was the thing which kept the world stable; and he would sell his life or his grandmother to keep “Ughism” going. And there we have to do with the whole subject of loyalty, except — except that we haven’t dealt with loyalty at all on an analytical level but the whole subject of loyalty is a reactive subject we have dealt with. "

Author: Hubbard, L. R.
Document date: 1955, 21 September, 1955, 21 September
Document title: Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing - New Understanding of Axiom 36, Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing - New Understanding of Axiom 36

“A confusion can be defined as any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion is random motion.”
“Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particular in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder.
“Any body of knowledge, more particularly and exactly, is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” – Ron Hubbard, The Scientology Handbook

“Any time anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude…if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject…he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as a hypnotic suggestion….With parity, such as occurs between acquaintances, friends, fellow students and so on, there is no hypnotic suggestion” (Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery, volume 4).  Source Jon Atack 

---

Also, even earlier, in 1950: 
[Quote] 
One error, however, must be remarked upon. The examination system employed is not much different from a certain hypnotic technique. One induces a state of confusion in the subject by raising his anxieties of what may happen if he does not pass. One then "teaches" at a mind which is anxious and confused. That mind does not then rationalize, it merely records and makes a pattern. If the pattern is sufficiently strong to be regurgitated verbatim on an examination paper, the student is then given a good grade and passed. 
[End Quote] 
 Ron Hubbard lecture 29 August 1950, "Educational Dianetics."
 source Lermanet.com 

From a tape on the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures in 1952 entitled Structure/Function we get this:

RON THE HYPNOTIST

Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1

"All processes are based upon the original observation

that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis

and removed at will any obsession or aberration,

compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“ 

"Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;

sometimes it worked,

sometimes it didn’t work.

It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.

Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.

Well, I had a high certainty already –

I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…"Ron Hubbard

From the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lectures we have a couple extremely relevant quotes. The tapes are listed by their number:

SHSBC-402

Of course, we go on a tradition "if you learn anything about man that will help him,

you help him with it." ...

"If you learn anything about man that you can manipulate him 

You're going to manipulate men, 

you've got to change their definitions

and change their goals

and enslave them and do this and do that. 

SHSBC-447

Now, brainwashing simply is the trick of mixing up certainties. 

All you have to do if you want to know and develop the entire field

of brainwashing as developed by Pavlov,

is simply to make somebody ..... into a confused or hypnotic state in which he can believe anything. Ron Hubbard

Complimenting this is a quote from Philadelphia Doctorate Course  lecture tape numbered 39 from 1952 - known as the games maker tape or lecture

"Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds  up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process." End quote

THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.

• Lecture: "Off the Time Track" (June 1952) as quoted in Journal of Scientology issue 18-G, reprinted in Technical Volumes of Dianetics & Scientology Vol. 1, p. 418. Ron Hubbard

Conclusion:

Hubbard plainly defined "postulates" broadly as decisions, conclusions and this can be called beliefs. Changing postulates in a person is changing their beliefs. 

So, he called brainwashing the trick of mixing up certainties. Putting a person into a confused state in which he would believe anything was how he phrased it. He said if you can manipulate men you WILL, not leaving any exceptions for himself ! And he said you will change their definitions and their goals which were their certainties and you will enslave them ! 

He said he started with hypnosis which could "implant or remove any inhibition, compulsion, aberration or desire you could think of BUT it has the wild variable that it works on the some people but not others and it works sometimes but not others." So, he was trying to see who it worked on and when and likely how to get it to work as often as possible on as many people as possible. He wanted people in Scientology to shift around the certainties, the postulates, the decisions and beliefs of people to change their definitions and goals, to definitions he wanted them to believe and goals that benefited Hubbard.This all aligns with the "game" he wanted. 

 His private communication to himself and to his wife Polly make it clear that his ideas regarding "you" using psychology, hypnosis and brainwashing and lying to control people as he described in Scientology doctrine was really him describing his own intention. The evidence is overwhelming. 

Scientology, Ron Hubbard and Hypnosis 2: Hubbard's Expertise

 

• Blog Archive by Topic

I have repeatedly run into talking points used to derail or disrupt posts and threads on the covert use of hypnosis by design in Scientology. I have had to deal with the same issues over and over.

So, to be efficient I am going to try to address the most frequently used points here and to have one place to route these ideas when they come up in the future.

To continue, this is the second post in a series. The first post addressed two claims.

Claim: hypnosis is outdated and no longer accepted by psychology.

Claim: Hypnosis has no scientific evidence and therefore as a claim presented without evidence can be rejected without examination.

I recommend that anyone interested in reading my response to those two claims to read the first post. I tried to be concise and thorough enough to address those issues clearly.


Claim: You cannot "know" if Scientology founder Ron Hubbard knew a lot about hypnosis because he lied so much and he plagiarized so many ideas. 

Fact: In looking at pathological liars there are things that psychologists, police and even historians CAN use to determine if a  liar knows something. First off, if a person says something then you know they HAVE the information. It doesn't mean they believe it or do not believe it. But it shows they have it when they say it. 

Police, psychologists and historians have used this fact for decades to work out when people have been aware of ideas and claimed to have no knowledge of them. 

This can be used with Hubbard. He wrote a lot and recorded thousands of taped lectures. He has created a library reported to be several million words of his tapes alone. Scientology has given us a vast wealth of information to examine and when we add in Hubbard's private letters and his affirmations (private self-hypnosis commands) we truly get an opportunity to look into his mind.

I contend that Hubbard held many ideas regarding hypnosis. There is ample evidence he practiced and studied hypnosis for decades.

Numerous accounts by his contemporaries include noting that Hubbard would expertly hypnotize people at parties and there are several accounts of him using hypnosis in creating auditing prior to writing Dianetics in 1950.

Additionally, we have many quotes from Hubbard himself confirming he had a wealth of information regarding hypnosis. Now, to be  clear, I am NOT saying Hubbard understood it perfectly or that the practice works exactly as he thought, but many people who are proficient in activities do not understand the underlying reasons why they are successful or capable. 

The point is that despite protests from some people to the contrary it can be established that Hubbard had a significant education in hypnosis, despite his lying. 


Supporting Evidence:
I am going to start with several quotes from Never Believe A Hypnotist, an article by Jon Atack. I recommend anyone who wants to understand Hubbard or Scientology read the article in full. It is available free online.

As well as showing genuine insight into hypnosis, Hubbard's statements are a fascinating maze of contradiction and misdirection. It soon becomes apparent that Hubbard is both eager to show off his knowledge and determined to hide something vital: that Dianetics is a form of hypnosis.
Prolonged and deliberate study of Hubbard's teachings makes it impossible to escape the conclusion that Dianetics is a form of hypnosis, differing only from that subject in the words used to describe the procedures. Hubbard's own Policy Letter "Propaganda by Redefinition of Words” (PR series 12) gives some understanding of the sigificance of redefinition (something Hubbard was frequently prone to, "reasonable” and "postulate”, for instance). The power of redefinition is also described in part in Robert Lifton MD's "thought reform model” under the heading "loaded language”, or indeed in Korzybski's General Semantics ("the map is not the territory; the word is not the thing itself”). Hubbard of course paid homage to Korzybski in both Science of Survival and 8-8008, and borrowed the misunderstood word from him (Hubbard also redefined Korzybski's various forms of isness). Korzybski's notions of the power of language figure not only as a basis for Dianetics, but also for Rational Emotive Therapy and Cognitve Therapy. Never underestimate the power of words! They are fundamental to manipulation and are the stuff of which positive suggestions or engrams are made.

Hubbard's research:
According to his own accounts, Hubbard's research consisted of hypnotism and drug hypnotism (see below), clairvoyance, automatic writing, automatic speaking (AstSF, May 1950, or EoS, p.56; see also R&D1, p.106) and faith healing (R&D1, p.186). He also had an interest in Freud's ideas prior to the introduction of free association, and Dianetic technique has many points in common with Freud's early attempts at therapy (Atack, p.108f; Freud, 1909). Hubbard also drew upon Korzybski's General Semantics, Wiener's Cybernetics and psychiatric research into psychodynamic therapy - including abreaction - and drug hypnotism. Hubbard gave no mention of scientific experiments or controls, and no case histories or follow-up studies have ever been made available.

Hubbard was also knowledgable about the history of hypnotism. He posited an early date for its discovery: "The art of hypnotism is very old, tracing back some thousands of years and existing today in Asia as it has existed, apparently from the dawn of time.” (DMSMH, p.12). "From India it long ago filtered to Greece and Rome and it has come to us via Anton Mesmer” (ibid, p.252). Hubbard also referred to the works of Bernheim and Charcot (R&D1, p.33; Charcot is listed as one of the men without whom "the creation and construction of Dianetics would not have been possible” in the acknowledgments page in SOS).

In his second published article, "Dianetics the Evolution of a Science”, Hubbard described a hypnotic session and said that it had taken him nine years to understand its importance (EoS, p.23). Hubbard described a number of hypnotic experiments - indeed, they constitute almost the entire of his recorded experiments. Unfortunately, case notes have never been available.

L. Ron Hubbard was sixteen when he made his first brief trip to Asia with his mother, in 1927. He made a second brief trip with both parents, and returning to the United States in 1929 (Atack, pp.53-57). He was later to claim that he had studied hypnotism in Asia (EoS, p.22; DMSMH p.252 [also DMSMH p.95, however, Hubbard's claim to have visited India is spurious. See Atack and Miller]). Therefore, Hubbard claimed to have been a practitioner of hypnotism for more than twenty years prior to the release of Dianetics: MSMH.

Hubbard flatly contradicted his statement that hypnotism is not used by saying that if a preclear drops into a "hypnotic trance ... the motto is: Work with him where he lies. If he drops into a half hypnotized state just by closing his eyes, work him there.” (R&D 1, p.336). Hubbard also asserted that "The mechanism by which the mind is able to cause physical disability or predispose the body to an illness and perpetuate sickness is, in its basic cause, a very simple thing ... A series of simple tests can be made on drugged or hypnotic patients which will prove clinically in other laboratories this basic mechanism. A series of these tests were run in the formulation of dianetics with uniform success.” (DMSMH, pp.93f).


In a lecture given three months after the publication ofDianetics: MSMH, Hubbard attributed a major discovery - prenatal memory - to a session in which he placed a volunteer in "amnesia trance” (R&D3, p.118). In the same lecture, he also credited his use of "deintensification” - where a patient goes through the memory of an incident repeatedly - to his study of hypnotism.Having denied that Dianetics came out of hypnotic research (DMSMH, p.58, cf p.201), Hubbard proceeded to regale his reader with tales of his hypnotic work. Many general statements were made about his work with hypnotism. External evidence supports Hubbard's practice of hypnotism (e.g., Miller, pp.140-141), and even taking into account Hubbard's propensity for exaggeration, it is evident that he had considerable experience as a hypnotist. Don Rogers, one of Hubbard's few close associates during the year preceding publication of the first book, has said that Hubbard used "deep trance” until he was commissioned to write the book in January 1950. He abandoned the practice because he thought it was unpopular (Rogers correspondence to Atack).

In his second article, Hubbard admitted "I knew hypnotism was, more or less, a fundamental” (EoS, p.22) and said that "hypnosis was examined” (ibid, p.23; see also EoS, p.96; R&D1, p.183). Hubbard also claimed to have used "hypno-analysis” (EoS, p.24) - psychoanalysis practised on a hypnotised subject - and recommended a book on the subject (Hypnotism Comes of Age, R&D2, p.12).

In an early lecture, Hubbard said that he had "worked a case in amnesia trance” (R&D1, p.183). He advised against amnesia trance, but added "it has been subjected to much research” and said "if other methods cannot be used ... amnesia trance can be employed” (DMSMH, p.385; see also R&D1, p.183).

Narcosynthesis and abreactive therapy:During the Second World War, both U.S. and British psychiatrists were experimenting with a form of therapy which induced hypnotic states through the use of drugs. Dr. William Sargant has left a description of his work on soldiers with "battle neurosis” or "combat fatigue” in his Battle for the Mind (1957). Drs. Roy Grinker and John Spiegel published an account of their work in 1945, under the title Men under Stress. The barbiturates and sodium pentothal were used in this work, which also relied upon Pavlov's discovery of conditioned responses and Freud's concepts of the unconscious mind and repression. Grinker and Spiegel called their work "narcosynthesis”, because it used narcotic sedation to assist the patient to rebuild or "synthesize” the personality.

As with Dianetics, in narcosynthesis the patient was required to "abreact” or re-experience traumatic events. Hubbard was familiar with this work: not only did he recommend a book which describes it (Wolfe and Rosenthal, Hypnotism Comes of Age, R&D2, p.12), but he also referred to narcosynthesis directly: "One will find regression if one treats soldiers who have been unlucky enough to undergo narcosynthesis ... He was merely sick before, but now he is crazy ... Anything which is touched in narcosynthesis is apt to be restimulated permanently.” (R&D1, p.333f). Hubbard even suggested the headline "Man released from Veteran's Hospital on Tuesday kills wife on Thursday!” (ibid, p.334).It seems eminently possible that Hubbard encountered narcosynthesis, or at least discussion of it, during his stay at Oakland Naval Hospital in 1945. Hubbard claimed to have treated schizophrenics with narcosynthesis (DMSMH, p.123f), as well as doing further drug hypnotism on cases which had already been "cured” by narcosynthesis (EoS, p.24). In a lecture given a few weeks after publication of this article, Hubbard warned against the practice of narcosynthesis (R&D1, p.123; see also DMSMH, p.390 drug hypnotism is "dianetically illegal”). However, a few days after this lecture, Hubbard said "it is allowable ... to produce a more acessible condition by amnesia trance, and even by drugs” (R&D1, p.184). In one of his first lectures, Hubbard had said "Narcosynthesis and other drug therapies have some slight use in Dianetics” (R&D1, p.8; see also R&D1, p.48).

Hubbard's research not only included decades of "straight hypnosis”, he also gave the idea that his work with narcosynthesis was extensive: "[tests] have been made on people who could be hypnotized and people who could not but were drugged. They brought forth valuable data for dianetics.” (DMSMH, p.57); "one day, a multi-valent patient, under drugs, went back to his birth” (DMSMH, p.126).

Of amnesia or deep trance, Hubbard said "This method has many things wrong with it. The entire duration of treatment is very long and difficult. The patient ordinarily speaks very slowly, is unable to contact [traumatic] incidents, his computational ability on his own life is very poor, and he will be uncomfortable during almost the entire period that you are working with him” (R&D1, p.183; see also DMSMH, p.385). Hypnotism also "carries with it transference” and "enormous operator responsibility” (DMSMH, p.201).

The importance of hypnotism:
Hubbard did his initial research using hypnotism. The major discoveries of Dianetics were made in hypnotic sessions. Preclears may already be in a "trance” state, or may accidentally go into trance as a consequence of auditing procedures. In hypnotism "we have the visible factors of how the reactive mind operates.” (DMSMH, p.63). As already cited, the auditor "must be prepared to use hypnotism, he must know how it works, what he should do to make it function, how to regress a person in hypnotism and so on” (R&D 1, p.307).

References:NB: page numbers vary in later editions, and some material may have been censored from these editions.
Astounding Science Fiction, May 1950.
Atack, Jon - A Piece of Blue Sky, Lyle Stuart books, 1990.
Freud, Sigmund - the Clarke Lectures in Two Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis, Penguin books.
Hubbard, L.Ronald, Dianetics - the Modern Science of Mental Health, Hermitage House, 1950; later editions until the 1985 Bridge edition have identical page numbering.
- Dianetics the Evolution of a Science, 1950; AOSH DK Publications, Denmark, 1972.
- Dianetics the Original Thesis, 1951; Scientology Publications Organization, Denmark, 1970.
- Hubbard Dianetics Auditor Course, Bridge, L.A., 1988
- Hubbard Dianetics Seminar, Bridge, L.A., 1988
- Research and Discovery Series:
volume 1, lectures June 1950; Bridge, 1980.
volume 2, lectures July - August 1950; Bridge, 1982.
volume 3, lectures 10 August-8 September, 1950; Bridge, 1982.
volume 4, lectures 23 September-15 November 1950; Bridge, 1982 .
- Science of Survival, 1951; Hubbard College of Scientology, 1967.
- The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, 1979.
Miller, Russell - Bare-Faced Messiah, Henry Holt, NY or 1987.
Wolfe, Bernard and Rosenthal, Raymond - Hypnotism Comes of Age, Blue Ribbon Books, NY, 1949.
Young, L.E. - 25 Lessons in Hypnotism, Padell Book Co, NY, 1944.
abbreviations used in the text:
AstSF - Astounding Science Fiction, May 1950
DMSMH - Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
DTOT - Dianetics the Original Thesis
EoS - Dianetics the Evolution of a Science
R&D - Research and Discovery, followed by volume number
SOS - Science of Survival, followed by volume I or II
END QUOTE

Jon Atack went on with hundreds of examples of statements by Hubbard regarding hypnosis. I  have examined hypnosis as it is not presented by professional hypnotists and in many videos and articles and several books. 

Hubbard despite his contradictory statements and merging of ideas from hypnosis with other plagiarized ideas clearly took many of the ideas almost unchanged from hypnosis.

I will add a few other Hubbard quotes to demonstrate his knowledge regarding hypnosis.

From a tape on The Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures

RON THE HYPNOTIST

Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1

„All processes are based upon the original observation

that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis

and removed at will any obsession or aberration,

compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“ 

Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;

sometimes it worked,

sometimes it didn’t work.

It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.

Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.

Well, I had a high certainty already –

I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…

RON THE HYPNOTIST

 Originally Posted by FORREST J. ACKERMAN about the 29 April 1948

"Well, 45 years ago there was established a Los Angeles Science Fiction Society. I'm a charter member. I was at the very first meeting and I've been to 1500 meetings off and on in between.

It was a period when Ron came around our club. He was living in Los Angeles. And what I particularly remember about his appearances there was an evening of spectacular hypnostism when hypnotized just about every kid in the club.

I remember he gave one young man a... what would you call it... In any event, the boy was convinced that cupped in his hand, he held a little tiny Kangaroo that was hopping around and I remember he came over and showed the Kangaroo to me.

 Originally Posted by 
Dec 1952 Philadelphia Doctorate Course

There’s nothing every very weird about hypnotism.

It is the easiest thing in the world. ..

„All right, now you stare at the candle, stare at the candle.

Now uh… you know that concentration of that sort can make you for… sort of sleepy and so on.You stare at the candle until you feel that.“

And he’ll say, „All right.“ See he’s agreed that concentration on that can make him sleep.

All right, … let’s look at this candle a little… a little closer and

now let’s feel… let’s feel the… the… the body becoming more and more relaxed. And, he agrees to feel that the body is becoming more and more relaxed.

That’s all there is to that. He… he just agrees little by little,

the next thing you know the hypnotist says, „

Now your eyes will close.“ And his eyes go bonk. Of course, he agreed to that.

Now, the hypnotist says, „

Now your right hand will rise.“ And with some slight amazement, this fellow watches his right hand come up.
And he says, „Wooo, I’m hypnotized.“ So he just gives it up then,

and the hypnotist now says, „

Now you see that kangaroo on your right knee?“

„Yes.“ He sees the kangaroo on his right knee.

Now take it on your right knee.

“Now let’s see it jump over to the left knee.

Now you got that? All right,

now let’s put… let’s put a… uh… a bonnet on this kangaroo. Got the bonnet on it?

Now have the kangaroo sing a song

.“ And the hypnotized person is very happy to sit there and watch this.

       Conclusion: between literally hundreds of remarks by Hubbard one can compare to the materials on hypnosis itself (which I have personally done) and numerous accounts by contemporaries of Hubbard detailing his use and research with hypnosis (Jon Atack has catalogued far more evidence than the meager examples I presented as examples here if you are unconvinced) we have in my opinion more than sufficient evidence to support the claim that Ron Hubbard had studied hypnosis to a very significant degree and was familiar with many of the practices and principles used in the subject.