padraig@utastro.UUCP (07/05/83)
Because of some recent inquiries on the net concerning Dianetics,
I thought the following might prove interesting.
According to this cult's reasoning, most of our problems
- especially those concerning the mind - are caused by traumatic
experiences being subconsciously remembered by the fetus.
For instance, if the mother is being beaten by her husband
and he says "Take that", then that would be the cause of the fetus
behaving like a kleptomaniac in later life.
In Martin Gardiner's book 'Fads and Fallacies in the name of science',
one section is devoted to the cult of Dianetics, and the related Church
of Scientology.
Gardiner refers to the case of the woman who had a rash on her posterior
and was informed, in all seriousness by her dianetic therapist,
that its origins were rooted back to the time when she was in the womb.
The "explanation" proposed by this enlightened diagnostician,
was that her mother at some stage during the
pregnancy had been told to have some aspirin, but somehow,
in the noisy environment of the womb, the fetus had interpretted the
medication as being ASS BURN...
I recommend this book to anyone who can mantain a sense of houmor
and reality, simultaneously.