Customer Reviews
Poor book, poor theory too. - By: John Mathias, 04 Oct 2008 
An absolutely terrible book.
I tried to keep as open a mind as I can, but the book is full of failed assumptions & fairy-dust theory. It's also written badly. Redefines too many words, overloads words not defined, full of terse text which could easily be broken into sections to make it easier on the reader. You get the impression that most of it was "written" into a tape recorder for a secretary to type up later.
As for the science behind it, it's sadly lacking. Very few references, but lots of "it's a scientific fact that" "science has proven that" etc. There is no "Joe bloggs from Blah university discovered that ..." However, it does mention Einstein. But not in relation to mental or spiritual theory.
A specific example: between p70-100, Hubbard mentions hypnotism & the unconscious mind several times. Every single statement, assumption & hypothesis in this section regarding hypnotism is completely wrong. Ie hypnosis equivalent to unconsciousness. Hypnotised people can do anything. Hypnosis isn't used in Dianetics.
A long tedious badly written book about nonsense. There is more useful spiritual advice in after-work pub talk. More enjoyable too.
JM
Very Practical - By: N. Fraser, 29 Apr 2008 
I'd read a lot of books like this but I found this to be much more practical than most. I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone. I like the idea of actuallly being able to improve your mind & quality of life rather than just learning to live with what you've got.
Help others with this book - By: Andrew L. Hovey, 15 Apr 2008 I first read this book in 1983 when I was busily screwing my life up with "solutions" that just made life worse. Understanding how & why I was doing this simply turned my life around from succumbing to surviving well. I am now happy, successful & seem to be virtuallly immune to colds & other illnesses.
I attribute this to bothering to read this book & applying its advice. If I had found it to be false advice I would have been the first to chuck it in the bin.
I recently re-read it in the latest edition, which is more clearly set out & has a synopsis that was missing from earlier editions. I got an even deeper understanding & I am now helping others to help themselves with this technology.
Essential reading for anyone who lives on this crazy planet & wishes to bring about sanity! It works!!!
Don't waste your time. - By: TheEmperor, 29 Jan 2008 
I bought this a few years ago, it looked interesting & had it recommended by a friend. It may have had a benefit for him, but this is a step on completely the wrong direction for self help.
As has been noted before, Hubbard has been heavily critised for having no qualification or experience in this area of science, & should have stuck to writing novels.
Approch with caution - By: , 18 Sep 2004 I read this book back in 1994, & at the time, thought I had stumbled across 'the great theory of the human mind that mankind had chosen to overlook'. To a young person still hoping that there might be an answer to everything, the appeal is obvious, but in the lines of that great Simon & Garfunkel track, 'a man hears what he wants to hear & disregards the rest'.
In hindsight, some of the theories are pretty obvious ('the purpose of life is to survive'). The cleverness is in telling you things you already know & weaving the basis for a religion around it.
If you want answers to those eternal questions from a science fiction writer, read something like Huxley's 'Brave new world' instead & you'll see that humans are far more complex than this 'propoganda piece' would have us believe.
