E-meter
Designed for Psychiatrists
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E-meter is a device that has been used in Scientology
auditing since the early 1950's. In effect,
it is a crude lie-detector. The meter is attached
with wires to two ordinary soup cans which are
held by the person being audited. A small electrical
charge is sent through the body while a needle
on the meter registers the electrical resistance
in the body. |
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While
Scientology claims that the meter is detecting engrams
(recordings of past events stored in your mind)
or Body Thetans (disembodied spirits of alien beings
who were blown up in a volcanic explosion 75 million
years ago) in reality the meter is reading small
changes in skin moisture and the pressure applied
to the cans.
For
many Scientologists, the e-meter gives "scientific
proof" that Hubbard's technology works. This
expensive electronic device has become virtually
indispensible to the rank and file members of Scientology.
Purchasing your own meter can cost you tens of thousands
of dollars..
Many
believe that L. Ron Hubbard invented the e-meter.
The very name is short for Hubbard Electropsychometer.
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But
the earliest e-meter used by Hubbard were Mathison
e-meters named after the man who actually invented
the device, Volney Mathison. Hubbard licensed
the e-meters from Mathison in the early 50's.
Scientologists
might be surprised to learn that the e-meter
was originally designed for use by psychiatrists,
a group which L Ron Hubbard taught his followers
to abhor.
In
this magazine ad,
Dr. Claude Wm. Chamberlain, MD, proclaims "What
the electrocardiograph is to the heart specialist
and the x-ray to the surgeon, the electropsychometer
is to the psychoanalyst."
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In
a related
article in the California newsmagazine, Fortnight,
it was disclosed that inventor Volney Mathison's earliest
e-meters used ordinary kitchen scouring pads in place
of soup cans.
In
1963, the Food and Drug Administration raided Scientology's
headquarters and confiscated all of Scientology's
e-meters, charging Scientology with practicing medicine
without a license. Later they were returned with the
caveat that Scientology place a label on them which
explicitly stated they were not to be used for medical
purposes.
Since
then, Scientology has referred to the e-meter a "religious
artifact."
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