The country has become very involved with radiation in the past year or so and as we in Scientology have achieved a much clearer understanding of this I think I owe you a rundown on Scientology and radiation.
At the outset let me assure you that our total interests in radiation at this time are two only: that radiation can create hysteria, and Scientology handles hysteria, and secondly that hysteria, because of radiation, puts people in rather poor condition and Scientology can rehabilitate them. We have no political or international interest in radiation.
As you can remember, the HASI in Phoenix, Arizona, was there at the time when a great deal of bomb testing was being done in Nevada only 250 miles away. At that time we had some vague interest in radiation, but it was more in the direction of locating any deposits of uranium which might have escaped notice. Being in possession of instruments which could measure radiation, we were quite shocked to discover that the atmosphere and the grand pianos began to count somewhat alarmingly. This was immediately after an H-bomb had been buried under nine feet of dirt and had been exploded. These radioactive dust particles swirled around the Southwest for quite a while before they separated themselves out.
We were worried. We were worried because the amount of radiation was obviously alarmingly great and I was as worried as the rest, perhaps even more so because of my responsibility for our people in the Phoenix area. I felt that we could not go on in the immediate vicinity of a great deal of testing and so I came East to give a Congress and establish offices somewhere away from that area. There were other local reasons but this radiation reason was more or less primary.
Back East we made no further tests but we continued to be impressed. We read about radiation in the public press, we read how the government was saying how it was not dangerous, and we read apparently responsible scientists on the subject saying that it was very dangerous. But because we had seen grand pianos counting like uranium mines, we were, of course, of the opinion that radiation was an extremely dangerous thing.
Without further examination of this subject and paying attention only to what was printed in the public presses, we saw no reason to change our attitude concerning radiation. But some things have happened recently which have brought about a considerable change.
I have just completed a Congress in London and was in communication with Members of Parliament through a HASI representative on the subject of radiation. It was clearly and cleanly stated by an authoritative Member of the British Government that Russia was making full use of the hysteria factors inherent in radiation in order to stop England from constructing H-bombs and to impede her defenses in other ways. He had incontrovertible proof that the hysteria campaign being conducted by Russia inside England and the United States was totally an effort to impede their national defense.
Russian campaigns you must understand are of the mental, brainwashing type.
Radiation is tailor-made to their agent provocateur tactics.
When I returned to America two things became very obvious. The first of these was that only the press of Russia and the United States did not report my remarks made at the Nuclear Radiation and Health Congress at the Royal Empire Society Hall in London. Other newspapers the world around carried the remarks as headline news. These remarks were to the effect that the greatest danger of radiation was hysteria. At the Congress I said that the H-bomb was not a weapon because it was far too powerful, it would not coerce obedience but only terror. These remarks are more or less complete in a book now being published called All About Radiation, for the British market only.
Another thing that happened is that I remembered why I left the Author’s League of America some years ago. Its Board had begun to offer prizes to deify minorities and it was taking other party-line data and trying to foist it off on American writers. The Newspaper Guild, so far as I know, is not entirely clear of this influence.
The other thing I did was to take a Geiger counter and make a test of Washington. A little earlier this Geiger counter had been giving false evidence because the stick used with the counter, as will happen, evidently had some uranium stuck to it. But with the counter in good operating order and clean, it was discovered that the background count of Washington, D.C., was the same as it was in 1932 when I was going to George Washington University and studying radiation. In other words, there has apparently been no general increase of count in London or Washington because of bomb testing. I did more than this. I made a calculation of the amount of gamma and cosmic rays which fall on Earth’s surface daily and compared this to the amount of test radiation waste which would be thrown into the atmosphere yearly. The figures do not compare. The added man-made radiation will probably never add up to your luminous dial watch.
On the whole track, radiation was dangerous for the good reason that there was more radiation in those times that could be exploded. However, radiation is a half-life matter and the older the universe gets the less radiation there is available to throw at people. And a good thing, too.
While we have no doubt whatsoever of the actual dangers of a bomb dropping on a city, we are now in a position to doubt rather thoroughly the vaunted harm from test bombing which is being sold the populations of Earth, evidently by the Communist propagandists.
The U.S. population is being stampeded by Russia toward leaving the U.S. defenseless. Already this has accomplished a defective U.S. civil defense and is gaining momentum toward a public demand for no bombs. This is how Russia works. Russia works on the population imagination. Russia uses any knowledge of the mind she has to instill fear and bring about destruction. She is an unworthy purveyor of scientific information.
Russia has already succeeded rather well in this field of seizing control of the mind. There is no essential difference between dialectic materialism and Wundtian psychology. Yet, Wundtian psychology is taught in all the universities of the United States. England, being an older and more mature government than the United States Government, has already awakened to this and is taking active government steps to halt this matter of public panic. England, for instance, is not buying Wundtian psychology. England is buying Scientology in rather large amounts. But this is not yet true of the United States. That it will come about in the future is more or less a certain thing, but that it does not exist at the time is a fact. Only the better IQs of the U.S. as yet buy Scientology.
We can be assured on the score of fallout — it isn’t dangerous at this time. It does not compare to the amount of “natural radiation” with which we are being bombarded. If you went down to Florida to live you would increase your radiation count much more than it would be increased if you stayed well North and the government blew off ten thousand more test bombs. In other words, just exposure to a clearer view of the sun will give you more radiation than you could be hit with in the near future because of test bombs. It’s just a fact that there isn’t enough uranium around to actually thoroughly contaminate the atmosphere at this time. I know that this is in controversy to my own statements on the subject — which is very interesting. My own statements were made in the light of our earlier experience. We had experienced test fallout in Phoenix and I had not made further tests or calculations. In other words, I myself had been swept up in this campaign to frighten the populace half to death.
The reaction to radiation is thus entirely, completely, and wholly mental! Dianazene depends for its reaction upon whole-track radiation incidents, and x-ray and sunburn in the current life. By taking away the engram which can react to the worry about radiation, worry about radiation is then made non-painful.
If you add all this up you will clearly see that scare talk about radiation is the source of radiation sickness in our present world. The Atom Bomb is too powerful a weapon to be used for control of human beings and is therefore not a weapon. But it does promise the population no future, and so promising, it damps out efforts toward survival. This itself can bring on sickness.
But we should not delude ourselves in thinking that actual radiation in dangerous quantities is adrift in this atmosphere at this time. It is not. All I invite you to do is to get a Scintillometer or Geiger counter and test around.
There is probably an ionospheric flash which gives a tiny sudden shock of radiation for the briefest instant of time — less than the amount you would get from a simple x-ray — and this acts as a restimulator to whole-track incidents. But it isn’t true that radiation is drifting around biting you at this time.
On the subject of strontium-90 it is interesting to note that a sufficient intake of calcium renders a person completely immuned to any effects of strontium-90. A child should be made to drink more milk and probably should have his diet fortified a little bit with calcium if anybody is truly worried about it.
This fight, then, is in the propaganda field. It is not in the field of actual science. I am extremely surprised at some of the scientists who are saying that radiation is dangerous. These men professionally should know their business and they are not expressing the true data. On the other hand, neither is the government making actual data available. The government is seeking to convince the public on the score of opinion. Opinion has no validity in science. If you want to know about radiation, why, go and look for some radiation in the atmosphere and if you cannot find more than the usual background count then you must assume that there isn’t any extra radiation in the atmosphere. I am not saying that the scientists who have been beating the drum on the dangers of radiation are Communist-inspired. I am not saying that these men are Communists. I am merely saying that they are aiding and assisting a Communist campaign.
We will not assist Commie propaganda aimed at stampeding the U.S. public into revolt against U.S. defense. The U.S. can bargain her way out of this. I am very hopeful that a general control of radiation the world around will be achieved and I am sure that if it is not achieved, national governments are dead. I am also fairly sure that there will never be such a thing as an atomic war. I have looked this over rather carefully and I personally don’t believe that national governments will last long enough at their present rate of non-survival activity.
Our cue is to make nothing out of radiation, if we mention it at all. People who are worried about radiation are worried because enough talk about it has thrown enough engrams into restimulation to make them actually quite ill. We can do something about restimulation. But we have no business aiding this public hysteria in any way. We are the people who take care of hysteria and not the people who stir it up. What we are doing is a bit bigger than one of Man’s new destructive toys.
Our campaign is to sell Scientology. If we sell it well, psychiatry and psychology will collapse. For instance, one of the most unfortunate things that psychiatry and psychology have ever engaged upon has been this mental health campaign of this spring. These people are not capable of withstanding public scrutiny. Their general activities are sufficiently harmful to their patients that if they stick their head up just a little bit further, even people in the government will be able to see that there is a swindle involved there. I expect within the next two or three years to see a complete and thorough congressional investigation of “charity rackets” and would expect to see psychiatry and psychology leading the van in those who are being investigated. Before you begin to advertise that you can do something, you should be able to do it. We ourselves are suffering from a comm lag of seven years. Not for seven years were we able to train auditors uniformly up to a level to get the maximum possible results out of Dianetics and Scientology. We, accordingly, experienced a considerable public kickback. Now we are making our promises good. It is possible for us to withstand the most minute and searching scrutiny on the subject of what we are doing and how we are doing it. The Validation Program of all Certificates which we are now entered upon is a very worthwhile step in this direction. We can today train an auditor. We can train him very very well. We have the processes which make an auditor able to audit. And this will accrue into our attaining dominance in the field of the human mind rather easily. All psychiatry and psychology need to do is to fight us a little harder, to advertise themselves a little more strongly, and the public and the government will see to it that they collapse. Furthermore, psychiatry and psychology are playing it too close to the government. And if people begin to turn away from the government because of the government’s promise to extinguish them with an H-bomb, they will also turn away from anybody who supported the government in the field of brainwashing.
We have gone a little off track here with radiation, danger of; with politics, the need to do something about; and we are not off track any more. We are in the business of Scientology. And Scientology rises considerably above the tinkerings of a few somewhat deranged scientists and the bickerings of a few misanthropic men wearing political crowns for the moment.
We have today very easily the most powerful “weapon” extant in the fourth dynamic. That weapon is Scientology. We are not using it for evil, we are using it for good. Therefore, we will win with it.
The answer to all this is to sell Scientology to individuals. Don’t try to sell it to groups. One doesn’t easily talk to a group. One should sell it to individuals and he should use the skills of Scientology to bring about a better understanding on the part of individuals of themselves and of himself.
I am not saying that the various governments might not do something dangerous with testing. I am not saying that H-bombs are good weapons. I am only saying we can survive it. I am only saying that we have one case — me — who has had 502 times the “allowed” amount and is surviving nicely, thank you, and other cases that are in like condition because of good processing. I am saying that with good, modern auditing a Scientologist can survive it — so why worry about it. As an organization and as individuals we’re going up-tone faster than others are going down. And Man faces many enemies more dangerous than Radiation.
I am giving you all this in explanation of what you will now begin to see come from the central organization and that will be Scientology — good auditors — validation of old certificates — good processing — bona fide clears — other things which we have waited to see all these years. We are making the grade now rather easily. We are doing things that we never thought were possible before. We are living up to any optimism which I ever gave out. I knew I could do it. I am afraid that I was over-confident in some other directions, but there is one thing that I have never done. I have never told you other than what I believed implicitly and completely. I have been as honest with you as I knew how to be and I have been as honest about my shortcomings as I have been about my victories. You can count on that, you know you can — for you always I invite your cooperation in this new campaign of ours — a brand-new campaign: To sell Scientology, Sanity and Survival to the individuals alive on Earth today.
Thank you.