The Shepard Room, located in the Phillips Brooks House, is a place usually reserved for teas and other ceremonies dedicated to the art of small talk. But last Friday there was a different sort of audience in the Shepard Room. About fifty serious looking middle-aged men and women, plus a few curious students, were there to hear a speech on Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.

But L. Ron Hubbard was not scheduled to speak. Instead, there was a reddish-colored tape recorder sitting at one end of the room, watched over by a young man in a neat blue suit. On the tape was recorded the voice of Dianetics' founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

Promptly at eight o'clock the young man looked up and, by way of introduction, announced that Hubbard has a "unusual ability" to communicate his personality by means of his voice alone. Reels started whirring and the listeners waited breathlessly.

"Maybe I'm oversimplifying," said the tape recorder calmly, "I get quite a kick out of this oversimplifying gag." Complete silence followed for a minute or two.

"Zero to one hundred to one thousand! BOOM!!" thundered the tape recorder. There was another silence, and then the machine resumed in a matter-of-fact tone: "You see that we have quite a margin to expand above 4.0." (The number refers to the Chart of Human Evaluation, which measures one's mental health by the standards of Dianetics.)

To explain one of the uses to which the Chart is put, the tape recorder described an hypothetical case: suppose some unfortunate finds he has a low rating on the Chart; he then asks an auditor (Dianetics for psychoanalyst) if things are really that bad. According to the tape recorder, "He (the unfortunate) is asking you (the auditor) to say no, and he'll really keep it up until you say yes, and then he'll spin."

The subject abruptly changed from the Chart to philosophical matters. The United States has a "punishment-drive society," based on a "mere theory which has more Mest than Theta." (Mest, it seems, represents matter in time and space, and Theta represents thought. Most plus Theta equals N-Theta, which in turn has something to do with the formation of engrams, Dianetics for neurosis) "Shut up you little bral that's education," pointed out the tape recorder as an example of the punishment-drive. As a result of this overemphasis on Mest, people do not know themselves; instead, they "give a present-time manifestation which has social veneer."

There was another pause, punctured only by the rythmic whirring of the tape reels.

Suddenly the tape recorder cheerily exclaimed: "We've got a handy jim-dandy supersonic vibrater coming up." According to Hubbard's voice just after the Second World War an American washing-machine company developed a supersonic vibrator that would dry clothes. Few of the machines were sold, however, because housewives complained that they "felt terrible around those things." However, after the company had changed its washing-machine's wave-length, users of its product felt "wonderful." "We're going to put one of those vibrators outside our offices," said the tape recorder," so people will feel wonderful when they go out."

There followed an explanation of the connection between mental health and the supersonic vibrator. "This tone scale," explained Hubbard's voice in measured phrases, "has an actual vibration rate; we can't measure it in Theta. Just where are the vibration rates in Mest? OK! Go black and blow the secondary--you make him vibrate and so he's there."

After a pause long enough to permit the spectators to digest this revelation, the tape recorder added: "Mest gets along best at about 4.0; it begins to evaporate above that."

"Seen any saints lately?" asked the machine--attempting, it seemed, to jest. "They're pretty thin, aren't they?" There were no smiles.

"It's kinda confusing," said the tape recorder softly. "It's kinda confusing."