If you want to find out more about Dianetics and Scientology, the best way to do this is to read an L. Ron Hubbard book on the subject. I personally recommend you read The Phoenix Lectures.

     This book really helped me with acquiring a grasp of the basics of Scientology and, in the process, getting a very immediate sense of the personality of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. It differs from many of the basic books of Scientology in that it is not a “written” book, but a series of transcripts of taped lectures given by Mr. Hubbard, and I particularly enjoy the casual humor, quickness, practicality and warmth of the man as it comes across in his lectures. (Of course, this is even more evident if you HEAR his taped lectures, many of which are available from Scientology organizations.)

     The first few chapters deal with the general nature of Scientology, for example, how its concepts relate to those of other religions. I found these chapters interesting, but where the book really took off for me was in the following chapters on the basic THEORY of Scientology, chapters that show the logic (organized as a set of incredibly elegant axioms) behind its techniques, what it aims at and why it works as powerfully as it works.

     These chapters deal with what, coming from any other philosopher, would be tremendously complex and rarefied stuff or very vague and mysterious (subjects like the extent to which our thoughts are senior to the mechanics of the physical universe - or can be), but as Hubbard treats these subjects, they become understandable, USABLE, simple.

     I suppose there are many students of physics who’d give a great deal to be able to sit down with Einstein and have him explain relativity to them. That may give some faint impression of how I felt reading this book.

     WARNING: This is probably not the book that most Scientologists would recommend for a FIRST look at Scientology. It’s not the simplest, certainly not the first book for everyone. If, for example, you are suffering from numerous unwanted physical and emotional conditions and would like to be free of them, a better first book would be Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health. If you’re curious about Scientology as a philosophy, but want a relatively simple, broad summary to begin with, I recommend Scientology, A New Slant on Life, followed by Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought. If you’d rather not dive into “philosophy,” but would rather sample some practical applications of Scientology and just get a feel for its approach, I recommend The Problems of Work. If, however, in looking through this web site, you feel that perhaps your interests are somewhat akin to my own, then there’s a good chance that “The Phoenix Lectures” will click for you.

     You can get this by ordering on-line at http://www.bridgepub.com (U.S., Canada and Latin America) or http://scncatalog.scientology.net.

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