Jeff Hawkins’s comment RJ, I’m assuming you know that your second reference, the famous Brainwashing Manual, was written by LRH under a pen name. My old friend John Sanborn was with him when he wrote it and it was common knowledge around the old 1960’s Pubs Org that it was really an LRH book, although that was never publicly stated to be so. It was stocked and sold like the rest. Brian Ambry (2001): "Brainwashing Manual Parallels in Scientology" (PDF, 715KiB) A review of the out-of-print Textbook on Psychopolitics, a.k.a. the Brainwashing Manual, reveals dozens of key parallels with contemporary Scientology. The Brainwashing Manual defines “Psychopolitics” as: “The art and science of asserting and maintaining dominion over the thoughts and loyalties of individuals, officers, bureaus, and masses, and the effecting of the conquest of enemy nations through ‘mental healing.’” Questions arise: Why, if Scientology has as its primary objective the mental health, enlightenment and freedom of others, does it seek to covertly impose the ideas and methods of the Brainwashing Manual upon them? When L. Ron Hubbard distributed copies of the Brainwashing Manual in 1955, did he inadvertently reveal the basic guidelines for what would later become Scientology in its completed form? (Much of the material quoted herein became available for public scrutiny as a result of Federal Criminal Court case no. 78-401, Washington, DC. This includes material from L. Ron Hubbard’s confidential covert Intelligence and Propaganda course, the Information Full Hat, which, as an item of evidence, is listed as exhibit 236.) Hopefully those who have been touched by Scientology will find this information helpful. [...] Chris Owen (Oct. 2000): "The Brainwashing Manual - the hard facts" There's no doubt that Hubbard at the very least edited or modified it [The Brainwashing Manual], though it now appears that he may not have written the bulk of it. The booklet uses several of Hubbard's neologisms and actually mentions Dianetics, his "science of the mind" which he launched in June 1950. The giveaway is the use of the word "thinkingness", a neologism which Hubbard coined in 1954. This means that the purported authorship by Beria is certainly false; he was arrested and imprisoned immediately after Stalin 's death in July 1953 and shot on 24 December 1953. Hubbard publicised the booklet in late 1955 as the first stage in a 40-year war against psychiatry which the Church of Scientology continues today. Hubbard had been convinced for some years that communists and psychiatrists were separately conspiring against him to do him and Dianetics/Scientology down and sent a lengthy series of letters to the FBI denouncing various of his associates, including his wife, as communist agents provocateur. In August 1955 a Scientologist named Edd Cark was arrested in Phoenix, AZ for practising medicine without a license (perhaps as a result of a complaint from local medical authorities). Hubbard was livid and for the first time denounced psychiatrists as working for communist — specifically Soviet — interests. The two separate prongs of attack, he claimed, were in fact a covert alliance with psychiatrists deeply implicated: [...] Bent Corydon (1987): "Messiah or Madman? - The Brainwashing Manual" After hearing Elena's story, I began searching through Hubbard's writings and other Church (and Church-sponsored) publications with the purpose of gaining a greater understanding of what he was really doing on the flagship (and, to a slightly lesser extent, in his land based organizations). I came across a little known but very revealing text: "The Brainwashing Manual." A little research brought to light that it had first appeared in 1955. The propaganda line on it (originating from Hubbard) was that it was found on the doorstep. Some concerned somebody had "slipped it under the door of a Scientology org." It consisted, according to the manual's foreword, of a transcribed lecture by the dreaded Beria, head of Stalin's Secret Police, given to students of psychopolitics at Leningrad University around 1950. Thereafter it was used as a textbook on how to wage psychological warfare on Western democracies. This psychological assault was to be followed by an eventual takeover of the West. This takeover would be achieved by first taking over the psychiatric professions, and the psychiatric and mental health organizations. Supposedly, this step was already well under way. The message was that psychiatry is solely a commie operation. Hubbard had long wanted control of the field of "mental health," and anything he could do to spoil the image of a competitor (in this case psychiatry) was a worthwhile action. (The manual was later actually being distributed by such groups as the John Birch Society — who believed wrongly that it was indeed a transcribed lecture by Beria.) 'Veda' (Mar. 2007): "Re: Brainwashing Manual-Hubbard? Beria? Ideas for Scientology?" Here are a few other "historical" comments on the origin of the 'Brainwashing Manual'. Fairly recently, Dr. Stephen Kent of the University of Alberta, Canada, wrote, in 'Brainwashing in Scientology's Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF)': "The entire text is fraudulent (Kominsky, 1970), and in any case, all indicators point directly to Hubbard as the author." In the latter 1950s, when the 'Brainwashing Manual' was brought to the attention of the United States Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, and the House (of Representatives) Committee on Un-American Activities, the prevailing opinion was that the "Russian Manual" was not authentic. Asked to investigate, the Senior Specialist for Russian Affairs of the Library of Congress, Dr. Sergius Yakobson, found no evidence of its existence. Edward Hunter, author of the 1952 book, 'Brain-Washing in Red China', wrote of the "Russian Brainwashing Manual": "The book is a hoax, and what it has mostly achieved is to fool people who think they are getting my 'Brain-Washing in Red China' which was based on first hand sources, and put the word into the language." Another interesting historical tidbit on the time-line of the "Russian Manual" can be found in the late 1956 version, printed by the Victorian League of Rights of Melbourne, Australia. Appearing after the "Charles Stickley" version of 1955, and after the Kenneth Goff version of 1956, it features a new Introduction by Eric Butler. The new Introduction mentions both "Stickley" and Goff: "The material on psychopolitics was first published in America last year [1955] by a Charles Stickley, who said that he could not reveal the sources of his material without endangering individuals who had assisted him. Early this year [1956] Kenneth Goff, former American Communist, also issued the material in booklet form." Kenneth Goff, and his supporters, have always insisted that the "Russian Textbook" dates back as far as the 1930s, yet no version can be found - including Goff's own version - that is not replete with Hubbard's distinct phrasings ("on the broad field," etc., etc.), and Dianetic and Scientology lingo. Efforts to locate the (mythical) pre-Hubbard "Russian Textbook" have been to no avail. Other comments on The Brainwashing Manual: who wrote it? The book appears some time in the 1930s, and is used by (if not written by) Kenneth Goff to speak against Communism and for Pentecostal Christianity. Later he adds an afterward on atomic bombs, to update the red menace. When L. Ron Hubbard had need of the book in the 1950s, he reads it into a transcription machine as if he 'wrote' it. Initially he removes references to Pentecostal Christianity and faith healing and does not speak entirely unkindly of Freud; later on he demonizes psychiatry more than Communism. The John Birch Society uses the book for their ends, as do the Vampire Killers. Hubbard did indeed "write" "Brain-Washing" — but so did Kenneth Goff, the John Birch Society, the authors of Vampire Killers 2000 and probably many others.