Hubbard answers questions about Dianetics; comments about its compatibility with religion, faith and atheism.

There are many questions that have come up regarding Dianetics, some of which I will answer here.

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“Are there Catholic practitioners of Dianetics?”
We have been receiving a great many letters from persons of the Catholic faith. I know of a Catholic priest who has been having excellent success with Dianetics, and there are many others. The Catholic Church in many of its locales seems to be using Dianetics and finding no evidence that it questions the Catholic religion.

“What will Dianetics do for an atheist?”

Atheism is rooted in engrams, and people who have had such engrams run out of them are no longer atheists. It does not mean that they suddenly have an abiding faith in religion. But a man who has no faith, even if it is only faith in himself, has no purpose.

The ministers and priests who have been working with Dianetics have been espousing it, and I have had no single letter from any church organization which condemned Dianetics. There is no conflict. After all, it says right in one of the tenets of Dianetics that a man seeks his potential immortality as a spirit.

Dianetics does not take into consideration such a thing as a belief. A science can’t believe in something. For instance, physics never believed in Einstein, and as a result there is no conflict between the two. You will find, however, occasionally an aberrated person will feel assaulted by Dianetics and he will become very protective of his own engrams and will find some excuse to take it up. But so far there is nothing between Dianetics and religion and I hope it so continues.
— L. Ron Hubbard
Lecture 10 August 1950: Introducing Dianetics - Public Lecture Given at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles