Dianetics. The brain-child of L. Ron Hubbard. To me, it looked like a lunatic revision of Freudian psychology - some of the basic notions seemed sound enough, but it extrapolated from them to make claims that struck me as incredible. Falling for it, Campbell let it cripple Astounding. He let Hubbard launch it with a long article in the magazine. Suddenly his letters to me are full of it. Instead of new story ideas, he's sending me case histories. If I have personal problems - or nearly any sort of problems - a dianetic auditor can solve them.

"Fifteen minutes of dianetics can get more results than five years of psychoanalysis.... We've got a set-up at the Foundation that involves a 10-day intensive therapy. We've broken homosexuals, alcoholics, asthmatics, arthritics, and nymphomaniacs with that 10-day processing."

He offers me contingent-payment treatment at his own center. To justify the thousand-dollar fee, he adds, "Incidentally, dianetics is not a money-making, commercial scheme, however much you hear to the contrary. I'm treasurer of the Foundation, and I KNOW.

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