Mithison e-Meter

Notes:
Quotes from Official CoS website on timeline:
Mathison Model B Electropsychometer

Volney Mathison presented L. Ron Hubbard with the first electropsychometer (or E-Meter) in 1951, the Model B. It was used for research throughout 1951.

Also in 1951 the first projection meter was built, the Model A. This E-Meter was useful in the instruction of auditors because it was designed to project an image of the meter, allowing students to see needle reactions while LRH demonstrated auditing techniques.

Mathison Electropsychometer

An ad from 1950s promoting the early E-meter to psychotherapists.

The ad is mainly promoting the invention of Dr. Neely (in picture), the foot-electrodes.

What we could read of the ad is listed with pictures below.

Click picture to enlarge.

Mathison Electropsychometer New approved foot contacting electrodes available. [........] Dr. Loyd E. Neely, psychotherapist, has recently developed effective foot-contacting electrodes, consisting of stainless steel plates which are [held] against the soles of the bare feet with elastic straps.
	Dr. Lloyd E. Neely demonstrates foot-contacting electrodes with the Mathison Electropsychometer.

Advantages noted by users:

Mechanical needle surges mostly eliminated.
Processe's hands are free and unrestrained.
Smoother tone and surge readings.
Therapist may conduct experimental self-processing, since hands are free to hold a book and to adjust instrument when necessary.

Mathison Electropsychometer
An adjuvant or aide to any form of psychotherapy.
[.....]

R. Hubbard's first Electropsychometer, 1951. This meter was used to plot the time track as recorded in the book "A History of Man"

There is a type of patient who presents a serious problem to the therapist. This is the patient who becomes discouraged or resentful about the non-appearance of immediate and almost magical results which the patient had secretly expected in his case. This problem is ably and bluntly discussed by Dr. Frederick Perils, M.D. in his book "Gestalt Therapy." Dr. Perls pulls no punches when he writes,--- "The strategy of motivating the patient to continue therapy is not taxed at the very beginning. There is at that time the so-called 'honeymoon period' when what is uppermost is ... the opinion that one's therapist is wonderful ... that one will be the brightest, fastest-moving patient he has ever had, and that one will now blossom forth into that radiant and inimitable personality that one has always felt himself to be. "It is when the 'honeymoon' is over that the motivating problem becomes critical ... the glamor is gone and the road still stretches far ahead. This is likely to be the time of 'negative transference.' The therapist, who at first seemed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, has revealed his feet of clay. All he knows is more of the same, and the same is getting tiresome. When this occurs, the case is likely to clog up with unexpressed resentment and be terminated by the patient." Or be transferred to some other therapist. Dr. Perls also points out another important matter: the patient is often subjected to pressure and ridicule by the people he lives with, tending to cause him to terminate treatment. "He may live with persons who construe his actions as a 'weakness,' to be treated for something 'mental.' (Or, and more commonly, the relatives may become aware that as the patient progresses, "They find it less and less easy to domineer, exploit[,] overprotect, or otherwise control the patient. In this case the patient will have to struggle against veiled and open pressure to make him cease and desist from this 'foolishness.' Many patients succumb to emotional blackmail levied upon them by their 'normal' associates." So, because of disappointment reactions, or as a result of interferrence from relatives, many patients self-terminate therapy. Electropsychometry Page 53 Wheter [sic] or not a patient continues treatment despite progress depends, I think, primarily on the degree of transference or affinity evoked in the patient by the therapist. Some therapists flatly state they are opposed to transference. This pronouncement is apt to come from those who are least able to evoke it. The patient in whom the therapist evokes no affinity is not likely long to continue consultations with that therapist. A powerful means for evoking transference or affinity has loomed up sharply in electropsychometric research. Credit for this is due in part to my reading some reports on the work of an unusual lay analyst named Paul Roland. Roland has for some time been quietly and unobtrusively performing near-miracles in veterans' hospitals. Roland's specialty is institutionalized catatonics --- patients who have gone so far down the tone-scale of life that they no longer speak. This therapist's technique is quite simple. He connects the patient to a psychogalvanic instrument, and then massages in a gentle and caressing manner areas of the patient's body --- head, arms, shoulders, neck, and so on, meanwhile noting the instrumental reactions, [ul]and concentrating on the surge areas[ul]. Roland at the same time keeps urging the patient to speak; he inquires calmly about the area under his hand and asks, --- "How do you feel here? Have you ever been anxious about this area?" and etc. Some of Roland's patients have responded. One who had not spoken for years, on being asked, --- "How do you feel here for about the hundredth time, suddenly sighed, relaxed, and murmured, --- "Better !" Doctors who have observed Roland's work say that it acts, at least in its effects, as if there occurred a tactile tran- Electropsychometry Page 54 smission of affection or [ul]love[ul] from the therapist to the patient's most tense and distressed areas. The basis of this approach probably was first presented in formal psychotherapy by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, a remarkable medical psychiatrist, who has f or years been emphasizing the increasingly accepted theory that psychic stresses are usually reflected in physical tensions in various areas of the body, eventually causing pain and illnesses. In particular, Reich believes that physical cancer is the [ul]end result[ul] of a condition of long-standing psychic stress, and that the appearance of malignant tissue signalizes the approaching end of the case, not its beginning. If Reich's findings have any validity, they also repeatedly indicate that physical contact, particularly heterosexual contact of any and all degrees, is apt to aid in the diminution of psychic tensions, and, consequently, in physical betterment. Experimental research indicates that neither the therapist or the patient is likely, however, to have any accurate knowledge as to where where [sic] the most severe physical areas of tension are situated --- unless the investigation is aided by the use of an electropsychometer. There is a further reason why this type of therapy requires an electronic monitoring. Without an electropsychometer, the approach is disturbing to some patients, as equating to some sort of questionable and undue familiarity. Upon being connected to the instrument, the attitude of the patient on this matter is usually greatly altered. Explorations of various areas may be anxiously requested of the therapist. -- [ul]TECHNIQUE[ul] -- The patient should be comfortably disposed on a couch. The procedure begins with the therapist informing the patient that the therapist proposes to Electropsychometry Page 55 initiate physical explorations in a search for local areas of reflected psychic tensions. Permission to do this is requested. Upon receiving the consent of the patient, and not otherwise, the therapist should first touch the wrists and hands of the patient, meanwhile watching the surge meter. If a surge occurs, the patient should be queried as to whether such contact is unpleasant; and if so, this therapy should be modified, at least temporarily, by merely employing the following procedure of having the patient mentally scan his own physical structure, area by area. Instruct the patient to close his eyes and to proceed mentally to contact his body in specific local areas, preferably beginning with the toes. For example, one may say to the patient, --- "Can you become aware of your toes? Left foot? Lower left leg. Right foot? Lower right leg; left knee; right knee; upper right leg; upper left leg; genital area; stomach chest; heart, lungs; right hand, wrist, shoulder; left band, wrist, shoulder; back of neck, scalp, ears, eyes, nose, mouth. Don't proceed too rapidly. Give the patient ample time to make contact with each area. Watch the surge-meter needle. On getting a distinct, even though slight surge on an area, apprise the patient of the surge and investigate the area more fully. The area may then be massaged. The massaging should be fairly gentle, yet as deep as possible, in general of the Swedish type, with pressures and motions usually transversely or at right angles to the tense muscular structures. The patient should be assured that the procedure is standardized; that is, that the contacting of any part of the physical structure, particularly the head, does not imply that the therapist has any idea that anything is seriously wrong in this area. Electropsychometry Page 56 My own experiences indicate that the best results are obtained when the patient is apprised of needle surges. This does not necessarily mean that the therapist has to do any evaluating. I would suggest reporting the surges and letting the patient do most of the evaluating. Sharp and [ul]recurrent[ul] surges in a localized area that show no reduction after two or more consultations and treatments are often definite indications of advanced organic disease. Recurrent surges in the cardiac region, in particular, would therefore seem to indicate that an electrocardiogram should be run. If this is done --- or has been done --- with negative results, one may safely assume that further therapy is in order. While making tactile contact with a specific surge area, the therapist may pursue a line of interrogation, simultaneously with the massaging, seeking to bring to view what actually did happen, may have happened, or could have happened, in this area. Maintain as much verbal communication with the patient as possible during the massaging. Sometimes direct suggestion may be employed to the effect that the patient may now be able to contact and bring to view deeply hidden painful past events. Enormous discharges of grief and tension have been obtained in this manner. -- [ul]SUMMARY[ul]-- Electropsychometrically monitored contact therapy has found to be a valuable means for evoking a high degree of transference. Whatever its efficacy otherwise, it is at the extremely good for this purpose. If, in some particular instance the therapist does not feel able to administer in a none-tense, assured, and professional fashion, he may limit it to head, neck, shoulder and back areas. Or he may confine Electropsychometry Page 57 himself to instructing the patient to proceed with the mental body-scanning technique described above. Monitored contact therapy sometimes produces an astonishing rise in the patient's tone-meter reading, but the long range effects do not seem to be lasting. Therefore it may be used mainly as a preliminary approach toward other techniques. But occasionally, this approach, by itself, has good and lasting effects. Upon what may this therapy be said to be based. There is a possible explanation; perhaps the therapist is directing certain of his own and his patient's energy-forces intensely toward tensional and distressed psychically rejected physical areas. Also there may be a deeper answer, which is presented herewith in the form of a condensed quotation from the work of Dr. L. J. Meduna, M.D, who writes, --- "We have arrived at the highest force of life, the force without which life can exist only on primitive levels. This highest force is --- love. "The love spoken of is not the [ul] eros of the Greeks or the [ul]amor[ul] of the Latins. It is the [ul]caritas[ul] (roughly meaning, 'caring for' i. e, 'I care for you. . . I care for this tense, suffering and rejected living area.') "This divine love, this supremely admirable love, does exist. It smiles on a baby's face and glows in the mother's smile. This love is our hope when we are helpless, the deepest foundation and the highest attainment of our human society... "Any individual --- newborn infant, adolescent, adult --- if deprived of this love (1. e, if deprived of this SPECIAL FORM OF COMMUNICATION. VGM) ... has received the first impetus toward Electropsychometry Page 58 becoming psychoneurotic. This is the transcendental significance of psychoneurosis as a phenomenon apart from the individual's misery; the greatest force of human existence, love, has been misused; thus life at its deepest biological root has been endangered." Love, perhaps, is a special manifestation of communicating energy forces. Without a variety of modes of communication it appears that neither people nor universes can exist. The intellectual type of therapist is urged not to be too squeamish in considering contact therapy. The patient is not made up of a lot of mere words and conversation; he is, or at least he possesses, a bony muscular blood-and-guts structure wherein he lives and suffers. I have encountered one violent criticism of contact therapy. "This transference, this deliberate creating of high affinity, especially by actual physical contact, produces a dangerous condition of bondage for the patient," declares this objector. "It is nothing by an efficient means for establishing a high degree of control over the patient, and I am opposed to it." This critic, on examination with the electropsychometer, revealed at once that he had been the subject of "smother-love" as a child. Hence, in his protest, he tended to project his own case. The question may, I think, be restated thusly: Which is better, the real bondage of the patient to the injurious and persons in his past, or a temporary transference to a therapist whose sole function is to help the patient to on his own feet. As soon as the patient becomes able to do this, the therapist, of course, should by gradual stages, reduce the degree of transference in the case.

Here's what I have found: L. Ron Hubbard said the "beep meter" is "a machine developed by Volney Mathison for chiropractors from a model furnished him by a chiropractor. Wherever a person has a painful spot on his body, if you put the electrode on it, the machine goes 'beep', but right alongside of the painful spot, it doesn't beep." (Establishment Officer tape #6, 7203C03 SO II "Handling Personnel")

Hi. It is an interesting point that Joe brought up about the meter as not too many people know that Jung was the first known user of a meter. Although I have been aware of this for many years, I have yet to learn what line of research it came from and who did the research etc. From a purely academic point of view, If any one knows of the research behind his meter I would like to know about it. Most Scientologist give LRH the credit, because he claims to have told Volney Mathison, exactly what it was that was needed. It is my opinion, LRH who was an avid reader, must have known of Jung's device and not having any technical data passed the problem over to Mathison. So much for "Source"!!! As an aside to all this, the MK 6 meter was the biggest con of all time. When two electronic engineers here in Perth investigated the circuitry of the meter, they were surprised to find that it was identical to the MK5 and also stated that some of the components were obsolete, but the manufacturers were obviously still bound by the protocol established by LRH. This is why so many far superior meters have since been developed in the independent field. One associate who had paid the earth for a Black Prince, talked of suing the Church, but of course eventually calmed down. > >As regards Hubbard's discovery of highly secretive "NOTS", entity assessment and extraction has been a part of shamanic practice, which has been estimated by anthropologists as being in existence for about 40,000 years. One needs to be fair and admit that NOTS was a far more sophisticated handling of Entities than practiced by any Shaman. [ there must be a bit of a shaman in me because I handle entities without a meter:-)) ], but the point I wish to make is that NOTS was the brainchild of David Mayo and he appears to have first used it on LRH himself when the Scio hierarchy thought LRH was dying after being grossly overrun on DNs. True to form, LRH saw its possibilities and promptly took all the credit, although David wrote most of the bulletins. David first got the concept while working on the ship with LRH. So much for source! you sort it out! Enjoy, John

In article <petCz1Dn2.Fpo@netcom.com>, Paul Trejo <pet@netcom.com> wrote: >It seems to me that Carl Jung has a data line on Dianetics that, >if not hidden, is at least not much discussed. > >In a large tome entitled, EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES (1937, Princeton Press), >Carl Jung records dozens of psychological experiments with the >'Galvanometer' and the 'Pnemograph.' > >This is commonly known as a Lie Detector, and is similar to the E-meter >used by the CoS. > >He focused on reaction time (comm lag) measurement. > >In that same book he describes dozens of experiments with word lists >and with 'word association.' I used to think that the psychologist >was interested in the associations, mainly. I learned there that the >experiement is done with a stopwatch, because the psychologist is >mainly intersted in the 'reaction time' of the client. > >Carl Jung found the Galvanometer much more effective in measuring >reaction time than a stop watch. He still used word lists that he >called, 'highly charged lists' in his psychoanalytic experiments.

Thanks everyone for all your feedback and links. Appreciated. "Perry Scott" <perry@ez0.ezlink.com> wrote in message news:tdc9fleuvljeb8@corp.supernews.com... > antivirus <unclevirus@email.com> wrote: <snip> > BTW, what are delta waves? Are they emitted only during sleep? > If true, then the E-meter is only effective for auditing sleeping > Scientologists! :) Don't know the answer to your question. But here's an interesting reference that sort of helped me: *** (from http://users1.ee.net/pmason/el_lucid.html) "The physiological explanation of sleep and dreams has been largely defined through the study and interpretation of the EEG or electroencephalogram, an instrument which measures brain wave activity, or specifically, the electrical bursts of neuronal activity, muscle tone, and eye movement. There are five distinct phases of brain activity in sleep: Stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM or rapid eye movement phase, the latter also referred to as paradoxical sleep, in which dreaming occurs. The first stage of sleep is light and usually lasts no more than 10 minutes. In this stage one may experience visual hypnogagic imagery. Stage 2 follows, lasting another 10 minutes characterized by slower and more rhythmic theta brain waves of light sleep. As stages 3 and 4 progress, slow delta waves replace the theta waves. Deep sleep takes place in stages 3 and 4. If subjects are awakened during this stage, they are disoriented and report mental activity as being more thought-like rather than dreamlike." *** If I seem to be preaching to the choir here, I apologize--just trying to get down a complete thought. ... Korzybski almost certainly drew upon Jung's famous word association experiments (1906-1907), some of which were done using the galvanometer. Jung came up with the idea of using the galvanometer as a lie detector in criminal investigations. (Experimental Researches--chapter "New Aspects of Criminal Psychology" by Carl G. Jung) Cute--Jung wrote up all the basic scoop in that book for false reads, body motion, etc. Korzybski was familiar with the galvanometer, although I have not come across any of his writings where he discusses the use of this device in his own research. Mathison was big on Korzybski's work--the fundamentals of Mathison's Technique 100 (associative processing) are practically unchanged. (JOS 1G Electronics Gives Life to Freud's Theory August 1952) And Hubbard almost certainly was familiar with the galvanometer experiments that were conducted by Aleister Crowley's yoga instructor Charles Bennett (aka Ananda *Metteyya*) Hubbard's big experiment at the George Washington university may have been a tad, uh, repetitive. <Can we talk?> Jung knew that the galvanometer measured skin resistance, and that changes in resistance resulted from the activation of psychological complexes by the operator. He did not write in terms of theta or delta waves however. I was just trying to figure out whether there is a causal connection between theta/delta waves and the action of the e-meter itself. Biofeedback training makes claims along these lines. e.g. http://www.web-us.com/alcohol.htm but I'm not familiar enough with them to know whether the devices they use appear to produce the changes or whether it is something else in the "training."
Poster: Antivirus