My Take on the Scientology E Meter

My take on the meter is there are some debated ideas I see as neither proven or disproven to my mind. I don't want to rush to judgment and present unsupported claims because it fits my beliefs or bias with no good science behind it.

I certainly don't believe it finds true incidents. Hubbard said the meter doesn't lie. He wanted people to believe anything said in auditing must be true if they were getting auditing so they would believe Scientology miraculously found hidden past lives and that miracle proved everything else Hubbard claimed. He wanted auditors to never invalidate claims by victims, no matter how obviously impossible or untrue because uncritically accepting auditing as true is a cornerstone of the fraud.

He wanted auditors to believe that the meter properly operated could find anything. Auditors realize the incidents can't be real because they meet a Jesus or Napoleon every other week. So Scientology tells them the memories are implants or the results of other mental conditions, but claims the meter and auditing are valid. The excuses start with the reactive mind in Dianetics and expand to implants in Scientology and even imagined incidents and the memories of others. Then by OT III and Class VIII for an auditor the BTs or body thetans are used for an excuse.

You have an ever expanding and lengthening list of excuses why the memories recovered in auditing are not valid, despite his claim the meter finds truth.

Ultimately the meter has no actual beneficial use to my knowledge.

The meter isn't the infallible lie detector Hubbard claimed. There is an idea that the swinging needle of the floating needle can sometimes correspond to a trance state, that is unproven but Hubbard may have believed it. He may have felt it showed the victim in auditing was vulnerable to suggestions. Which obviously Hubbard sought.

He wanted the auditor to achieve the floating needle before ending the session quite often. His claimed interpretations of the other meter phenomena have been largely discredited to my personal satisfaction by examination by ex Scientologists in very lengthy dissertations.

The bottom line on the meter phenomena is it's almost entirely been debunked, certainly as Hubbard claimed. I can't say every single sentence he made was disproven since he said millions of things, but the core doctrine on the meter is disproven pseudoscience.

The meter does function to at least seem like a scientific instrument to fool people. It confuses both the auditor and the victim of auditing so they both have their attention divided between the meter, their own mind and the other person in the room. That division makes critical and independent thinking more difficult and relying on habit easier. It makes both people more anxious and suggestible. It makes both more likely to resort to following the authority of Hubbard for both direction on how to act and guidance on how to interpret what occurs in auditing.

They both are meant to enter trances and imagine and anticipate what Hubbard suggested in Scientology doctrine. They are meant to encourage each other to find evidence that supports Hubbard's claims and to deny or avoid evidence against Hubbard's claims. The auditor is happy when the victim finds incidents Hubbard predicted and unhappy when auditing doesn't progress, this encourages the victim to find incidents.

It's been said an object, concept or image to focus on helps a hypnotist. Some have used a waving handkerchief or mirror or candle or pool of water to be an aid to hypnosis. Similarly the meter is something to focus attention on. The degree to which it helps is debatable, but the confidence it gives the hypnotist may function well enough. It gives the hypnotist something outside their own self to focus on. It can inspire confidence which can translate to effective persuasion.

Arnie Lerma has some ideas I don't have strong independent confirmation for or against. He has made his own case atLermanet.com.

I think the warning the inventor of the E meter Volney Mathison made in his book Creative Image Therapy is very important. If you examine hypnosis and Creative Image Therapy it's very obvious in my opinion that Hubbard merely stole much of Creative Image Therapy for his Scientology and plagiarized it. He repackaged things and filed off the serial numbers, meaning tried to alter them enough so it wouldn't be completely obvious he stole them.

Below is Volney Mathison's quote from Lermanet.com.

Don't be tricked by any faker, whether he claims to be holy, "illuminated", or "scientific". There are charlatans who promise--even through the U. S. mails, so stupidly reck less are they--to heal or transform you for large sums of money--some by esoteric "teachings", others by their mere presence or by their invoking some mysterious Power. The Power they claim to invoke is genuine--but it functions only within each of us. It was, is, and probably always will be here, unlimited.

The faker who hypnotizes you out of your money is not himself a sane, whole, and happy man--he is usually operating, puppet-like, on some deep, uncleared set of sub conscious image patterns as brutal as those of some stray killer shark.

The power to create and to re-create is within each of us. It is not to be brought in through the door or the window by the wave of any man's hand, no matter how good or saintly a man he may in some cases actually be.

Creative Image Therapy
by Volney G Mathison
(c) 1954 by Matheson Electropsychometers International
Scanned and OCR'd by
Lermanet.com Exposing the CON