Hubbard's prejudice against Zulus

[Kim Baker]

In Hubbard's own words, an extract from: "Dianetics: The modern
science of mental health", Book 2, Chapter 8 ("Contagion of
Aberration"), paragraph 9:

"Primitive societies, being subject to much mauling by
the elements, have many more occasions for injury than
civilized societies. Further, such primitive societies
are alive with false data. Further, their practice of
medicine and mental healing is on a very aberrative level
by itself. The number of engrams in a Zulu would be
astonishing. Moved out of his restimulative area and
taught English he would escape the penalty of much of his
reactive data; but in his native habitat the Zulu is only
outside the bars of a madhouse because there are no madhouses
provided by his tribe. It is a safe estimate and one
based on better experience than is generally available to
those who base conclusions on "modern man" by studying
primitive races that primitives are far more aberrated
than civilized peoples. Their savageness, their
unprogressiveness, their incidence of illness all stem from their
reactive
patterns, not from their inherent personalities. Measuring
one set of aberrees by another set of aberrees is not likely
to lead to much data. And the contagion of aberration,
being much greater in a primitive tribe, and the falsity
of the superstitious data in the engrams of such a tribe
both lead to a conclusion which, observed on the scene,
is carried out by actuality."

South African citizens from the Zulu nation find this highly
offensive, patronising and out-right racist. The rich body of
ancestral traditions, ceremonies and culture of the Zulu people are
admired the world over. The picture that Hubbard has painted of the
Zulu nation reveals an alarming ignorance and ability to comprehend
a cultural tradition that is not his own. If his ability to
understand the Zulu nation was that erroneous, how then his ability
to observe and dictate a "philosophy of mind"?

Kim Baker