The Work was Free
by L. Ron Hubbard
I have been at work for seven years to produce a series of techniques which any well-trained auditor can use to clear people. We now have them.
I am truly sorry that this took seven years. Actually, it took more than twenty-five.
Under other “systems of research” it could not have been done. It was financed at first by my writings and expeditions. Some 15,000,000 words of fact and fiction articles ranging from political articles to westerns were consumed in a large part by this research—but it was free to act if not free from sweat.
No bullying dictator wanted it for his mass slaveries as happened to poor misguided Pavlov. No big corporation wanted it for a better Madison Avenue approach to advertising—another kind of slavery. No big RESEARCH FOUNDATION like Ford was there to interject their “America First” philosophy. These had not paid for it; therefore they didn’t own it. The work stayed free. Thus it prospered. It did not wither in support of some aberrated “cause.” It bloomed.
But the violence of protecting this work while continuing it took a toll nevertheless. Special interests believed it must be evil if they did not own it. Between 1950 and 1956, 2,000,000 traceable dollars were spent to halt this work. Newspaper articles, radio ads (as in Seattle from the University of Washington), bribed “patrons,” financed “patients” all cost money. You hear the repercussions of this campaign even today.
Money could not stop this work by then. It was too late. If anything had been wrong with our organizations, my character, our intentions or abilities the whole advance would have crumbled. But we had no Achilles’ heels. We carried on. All that has survived of this attack by the two APAs, the AMA and several universities is a clutter of rumors concerning your sanity and mine—and rumors no longer financed will some day die.
And so the work has emerged free of taint and misguided slants. It is itself. It does what it says it does. It contains no adroit curves to make one open to better believing some “ism.” That makes it singular today in a world gone mad with nationalism. Buddhism, when it came to the millions, was no longer free of slant and prejudice. Taoism itself became a national jingoism far from any work of Lao-tse. Even Christianity had its “pitch.” And if these great works became curved, with all the personal force of their creators, how is it that our little triumph here can still be found in a clear state?
Well, no diamonds and palaces have been accepted from rajahs, no gratuitous printing of results has been the gift of warlords, no testament had to be written 300 years after the fact.
For this we can thank Johann Gutenberg, and the invention of magnetic tape.
Therefore, although we have no such stature as the Great Philosophies, I charge you with this—look to source writings, not to interpretations. Look to the original work, not offshoots.
If I have fought for a quarter of a century, most of it alone, to keep this work from serving to uphold the enslavers of man, to keep it free from some destructive “pitch” or slant, then you certainly can carry that motif a little further.
I’ll not always be here on guard. The stars twinkle in the Milky Way and the wind sighs for songs across the empty fields of a planet a Galaxy away.
You won’t always be here.
But before you go, whisper this to your sons and their sons—“The work was free. Keep it so.”
L. Ron Hubbard
Founder
Excerpt from: Scientology Clear Procedure, Issue One, December, 1957

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Achilles’ heel: a portion, spot, area or the like, that is especially or solely vulnerable. In Greek mythology, Achilles was an illustrious Greek warrior. He had been dipped in the river Styx (one of the mythological rivers of Hell) by his mother, which rendered him invulnerable except in the heel by which she held him. He was fatally wounded by an arrow in that heel.
AMA: abbreviation for American Medical Association: a professional physicians’ organization, established in 1847, with the stated purpose of promoting public health, protecting the welfare of doctors and supporting medical science.
Ford Foundation: a large private trust, which was established in 1936 by Henry and Edsel Ford. Its original aim supposedly was to found a scientific study of man.
Ford, Henry: (1863–1947) American industrialist, pioneer automobile manufacturer, organizer and president of the Ford Motor Company, one of the largest automobile companies in the world. His son Edsel took over as president of Ford Motor Company in 1919. After Edsel died in 1943, Henry Ford took over control of the company again until 1945, when his grandson, Henry Ford II took over, modernized the administrative structure and made other changes that helped the company continue to prosper.
Gutenberg, Johann, c.1397–1468, German printer, believed to have been the first European to print with movable type.
jingoism: Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent (= inclined or eager to fight; aggressive) foreign policy.
Lao-tse: (604–531 B.C.) Chinese philosopher: reputed founder of Taoism. Taoism: a Chinese religion and philosophy based on the doctrines of Lao-tse. Tao means a way of knowing how to know. The literal translation of the word Tao is knowingness.
Madison Avenue: a street in New York where many large advertising companies have their offices.
Milky Way: (astronomy) the spiral galaxy containing our solar system. With the naked eye it is observed as a faint luminous band stretching across the heavens, composed of innumerable stars, most of which are too distant to be seen individually.
Pavlov: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936), Russian physiologist. Noted for behavioral experiments in which he sounded a bell while presenting food to a dog, thereby stimulating the natural flow of saliva in the dog’s mouth. After the procedure was repeated several times, the dog would salivate at the sound of the bell, even when no food was presented.
two APAs: reference to the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. American Psychiatric Association: an organization formed in the United States in 1844, as the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, by thirteen superintendents of mental hospitals. It later changed its name to American Psychiatric Association. It promotes the use of psychiatry and seeks to protect and forward the vested interests of psychiatrists. American Psychological Association: an association of psychologists and educators whose purpose is to advance psychology as a practice.

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