More About Clean Hands Congress

The road to Hell—Man’s very good at painting ugly signs that point its course and way.

The road to Heaven—Man’s often sent but never yet arrived—more like he found the ‘other place.’

But now a road that’s wide has opened up—in Scientology.

The meter and the Process Check, when done by auditors with skill, can open up transgression’s rush and loose a cascade out until Hell’s spent.

And day will once more have a drop of dew upon the morning rose. —L. Ron Hubbard

“Clean Hands Make a Happy Life,” wrote Mr. Hubbard in the autumn of 1961. And, as attendees would soon learn, what made those hands clean was the E‑Meter.

Then again, while he always announced milestone developments at Scientology Congresses, the one he scheduled this time generated an unprecedented level of anticipation. Organization announcements didn’t just promote it, they insisted on attendance: “We want every Scientologist in the country to attend this Congress—it’s that important!”

Held at Washington DC’s Mayflower Hotel, from 30 December 1961 to 1 January 1962, it was a Congress that signified far more than a new year—it was an entirely new horizon, a new future for Scientology:

“I probably have the best news for you that I have ever given at a Congress.”

Yet with those initial words of introduction, it was soon clear this was a new type of Congress as well:

“Because at this Congress I’m not going to pull any punches for you at all.”

The story had actually begun seven months earlier—the 7th of May, 1961, to be precise. It was a day that would forever change the face of Scientology, from the very manner in which auditors were trained, to the conduct of an auditing session and the structure of the Bridge itself. For it was the day the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course (SHSBC) commenced.

If technology had steadily advanced, year by year, it was nothing compared to the precision it would now become. The first revolution in auditor training was necessitated by a new type of processing requiring a higher level of skill. So came the development of training drills (TRs). But no matter how advanced those earlier processes were in reaching any case, they were not even comparable to what Mr. Hubbard was now addressing with Goals Processing—encompassing the Be, Do and Have of a thetan. And what that auditing required was something else, as he explained in that first Briefing Course lecture:

“Now, the whole fact of clearing today depends on this meter. If you can read this meter well, you can clear people and if you can’t read this meter well, you certainly can’t. That’s just the long and the short of it.”

That’s also why, as a first step, he developed an entirely new meter—built to his exact specifications and under his direct supervision. After various prototypes (Mark I, II, III) he had the first truly workable and precision E­-Meter, the Hubbard Mark IV. Next, taking all he had learned in the past ten years, he wrote the first book on the meter’s operation and explanation of its various reactions, E­-Meter Essentials. But no matter the watershed advance of that meter, the even bigger story concerned what L. Ron Hubbard had now discovered through its use:

“A very exhaustive study of this thing has turned up some of the most remarkable data that has ever been turned up in Scientology and that is the existence of and the exploration of the Goals Problem Mass. They are masses of mental energy, you might say, burned down to the last notch, and nobody can get rid of the cinders.”

As for what else that discovery encompassed, the definition, anatomy and construction of the Goals Problem Mass (GPM) is contained here, in the only public lecture on the subject ever given outside the SHSBC.

And therein lay the substance of this Congress. For while the discovery of the GPM would occupy continuing years of research—leading to the development of the Clearing Course—what it, in turn, revealed was something that impacted every level of processing and training of auditors: Withholds.

And therein lay the answer to Clean Hands and why this Congress ultimately meant eternity itself:

“It has nothing to do with morals.

“It has everything to do with upward and onward and freedom.

“If you can just be brave enough to be good enough to get the job done, you will be free.”