Re: Cult memes and endorphins

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri 02 Apr 2004 - 06:20:51 GMT

  • Next message: Keith Henson: "Re: new memetics piece"

    Keith:

    Could the electrical current involved in the galvanic measurement device have any significant impact on endorphin release, especially if the slight current passes through the body over an extended period of time? I vaguely recall a psych professor hooking me up to a really simple galvanometer when I was in a community college intro psych course and can't remember a feeling of current passing through me. How this experience differs from an e-meter wrt current levels I dunno. My experience was brief and what the professor said to provoke a reaction coupled to being the focus of attention in front of the class may have both had more of an impact upon me than the galvanometer itself.

    People might identify a perceived efficacy with the device itself somehow, as if it has some sort of special power over them.

    The psychogalvanometer thing was one instance of Hubbard's adoption of other people's ideas. He is probably better known for the use of the engram concept than either Semon or Lashley when it comes down to the popular exposure to this term, just as with the e-meter. You say that you weren't aware that Jung used a galvanometer, for instance. I'd predict most people who are familiar with Scientology or Dianetics and not the history of psychology or memory research would assume Hubbard originated the engram concept. I suppose his adoption of engrams and the psychogalvanometer involved some modification of each from their original incarnations. Antiquarian that I am, I'd most likely prefer the originals.

    Given my familiarity with Semon and Jung, I'd probably have a better understanding than lots of folks of where a couple of Scientology's core tools and concepts originated. Yet, I have very little ambition to explore these connections to see just how deep the rabbit hole runs.


    attached mail follows:

    At 10:19 PM 01/04/04 -0500, you wrote:
    >Keith:
    >
    >How does a psychogalvonometer result in an endorphin release itself?

    There are people (Arnie Lerma and a few others) who think that the small electrical current that runs through the cans the victim grips cause endorphin release. I doubt it myself

    >I thought this was a more or less passive device for measuring skin
    >responses during a given procedure such as auditing in the case of
    >Scientology. Maybe the auditing methods themselves might help produce a
    >release of endorphins. I dunno.

    The auditing process focuses intense attention on the subject with intense emotional interactions. Anyone who has come off a speaker's platform higher than a kite after giving a speech and being the focus of attention knows the feeling of endorphin dump.

    snip

    >I'm not familiar with Hubbard's techniques for using the
    >psychogalvonmeter as a measuring tool or what sort of process is
    >involved in auditing. Whatever it is, it should not reflect negatively
    >by retrospective association on Jung's use of a similar device roughly a
    >century ago.

    Hubbard stole stuff from all over. This is the first time though that I had any idea that Jung used something similar.

    >Nonetheless, I wonder if it's something in the audting
    >process that would trigger endorphins, if such is the case, instead of a
    >relatively passive and innocuous measuring device that has probably been
    >superceded by the EEG, PET and fMRI.
    >
    >Does Scientology auditing use word association methods?

    Not that I know about. They use long check lists for some "processes."

    Keith Henson

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