An Introduction to Scientology (1984 Video)

L. Ron Hubbard: Self

Quotes 

• L. Ron Hubbard : You have to neglect illness, and the body, and so forth, to improve man.

• L. Ron Hubbard : Psychiatry has to do with the insane, and we have nothing to do with the insane whatsoever. The insane -- well, uh, they're insane.

• L. Ron Hubbard : I asked them one day, up at Oxford, "What -- what -- what does 'Scientology' mean?" and they said -- they -- it means, really, "the study of knowledge" or "I know the word."

• [responding to Hubbard's claim that Scientology increases IQ] 

  Tony Hitchman : But surely you've only got as much brain as you're born with.

  L. Ron Hubbard : Oh, no -- brain has nothing to do with it. Brain is a sort of a -- well, I don't know, brain is brain. What it does, I'm never quite sure.

• L. Ron Hubbard : The insane, and so forth, somebody else can have them, they've already failed.

• L. Ron Hubbard : But that's psychotherapy. That's for the neurotic, or the person who is insane, or something like that. That has nothing to do with Scientology. Scientology is for an able guy like you, or like me, uh, able to function in life, able to make his own way, does his work, and so forth - all right, THAT'S the man that should be helped; that's the man you should help out, because that fellow is having a hard time, and uh, he's got his problems.

• Tony Hitchman : Mr. Hubbard, many millions of words have been said and written about Scientology, but I think there's still quite a lot of doubt in many people's minds as to exactly what it is. What is Scientology? How would you describe it?

  L. Ron Hubbard : Well, it's very interesting. You've just asked a question like, "What are the contents of the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Answer in one word."

  Tony Hitchman : Well, Mr. Hubbard, it's obviously something that's very wide-ranging, and if you can't describe it overall, perhaps we can begin at the beginning. How did you get into Scientology? How did it all start?

  L. Ron Hubbard : Well, that - that is fairly easy. When I was, uh, a very young man, I spent most of my teens in Asia. And, uh, that is a, an area of the world, uh, where human misery and, uh, want, uh, are, uh, very visible, where, uh, Man has reached perhaps the lowest states of degradation, and a young man moving into that scene begins to ask the question, "Why? Why all this? Why - What is this? Uh, what depths can man fall to, and what is he, anyway?" And I began to ask this question, "What is Man?" And, uh, I found oddly enough that nobody could tell me what Man was. Uh, what did he consist of, uh, where was he going, what was he doing? I became very fascinated with this particular line of research and I made it my life's work.

  Tony Hitchman : Did you read widely of philosophy?

  L. Ron Hubbard : Yes, but the philosopher, of course, has spent most of his working years in his ivory towers, and he was pretty insulated from life. To really know life, you've got to be part of life. You must get down and look, you must get into the, the nooks and crannies of existence there, you have to rub elbows with all kinds and types of men before you can finally establish what he is.

  Tony Hitchman : And you in fact did this?

  L. Ron Hubbard : Yes, I've slept with bandits in Mongolia and I've, uh, uh, hunted, uh, with, uh pygmies in the Phillipines; as a matter of fact, I've studied 21, uh, different primitive races, uh, including the white race...

  L. Ron Hubbard : [laughs] 

  L. Ron Hubbard : - and, uh, uh, my conclusions, uh, were that, uh, Man, regardless of his state of culture, and so forth, was essentially the same, that he was composed of a, uh, - he was a spiritual being. And he was a spiritual being that was pulled down to the material, uh, the, uh, fleshly interests, the, uh, to an interplay in life that was in fact to great for him to confront. And I concluded finally, uh, that he needed a hand.