Dianetics is a set of pseudoscientific ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body that was invented by L. Ron Hubbard and is practiced by followers of Scientology. Hubbard coined Dianetics from the Greek stems dia, meaning through, and nous, meaning mind.
Dianetics explores the existence of a mind with three parts: the conscious “analytical mind,” the subconscious “reactive mind“, and the somatic mind.[1] The goal of Dianetics is to remove the “reactive mind”, which Scientologists believe prevents people from becoming more ethical, more aware, happier and saner. The Dianetics procedure to achieve this is called “auditing”.[2] Auditing is a process whereby a series of questions are asked by the Scientology auditor, in an attempt to rid the auditee of the painful experiences of the past which scientologists believe to be the cause of the “reactive mind”.
Dianetics grew out of Hubbard’s personal experiences and experiments and has been described as a mix of “Western technology and Oriental philosophy”.[3] Hubbard stated that Dianetics “forms a bridge between” cybernetics and General Semantics, a set of ideas about education originated by Alfred Korzybski that was receiving much attention in the science fiction world in the 1940s