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Elizabeth Daily Journal
April 3,
1951
Dianetics Group to Quit City Because "We're Not Wanted"
The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, 275 Morris Avenue, target
of a suit accusing it of operating a medical school without a license,
is moving its national headquarters out of Elizabeth because it has no
desire to remain where it is not wanted.
Transfer of the national headquarters to Wichita, Kan., effective
April 15 was announced yesterday by the foundation. A spokesman
indicated the principal reason is the pending District Court suit.
Charles Leonard, in charge of press relations for the foundation,
said other factors encouraged the move to Kansas, but that the suit
initiated by the State Board of Medical Examiners and set for trial in
May was "the axis on which the other factors revolved."
"We have no desire to remain where we are not wanted," Mr. Leonard
declared. "we have brought a great deal of business to Elizabeth and
to New Jersey, but if we are not welcome here, we do not choose to
remain."
L. Ron Hubbard, author of a book on therapeutic thinking, said
"Dianetics is a pioneer mental science. It is only natural that we
should prefer to centralize where the American pioneering spirit and
cultural interests are still high."
Dianetics claims that every cell of a person's body remembers what
happened, from before birth, that illness is due to these memories and
disappears when the brain is aroused to get this memory from the cell.
Dianetics is the art of getting the brain to draw on the cell
memories. How that is done is not explained.
The Hubbard Foundation, described by its operators as a non-profit
organization, was founded here, last May. Branches have been opened
in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington and Honolulu, and groups
have been formed in foreign countries.
Mr. Leonard said city leaders in Wichita invited the Hubbard
foundation to open its national headquarters there and that 18,000
square feet in a downtown office building have been acquired. Some of
the key members of the foundation will transfer immediately to
Wichita, it was said.
Whether a branch office will be maintained in Elizabeth will depend
on the outcome of the District Court suit, Mr. Leonard stated. He
said he hopes the Morris Avenue quarters could be retained.
Plans to move the national dianetics headquarters to the new
building at 10 Caldwell place early this year were abandoned when the
suit was instituted.
"Wichita is not only one of the most central points,
geographically, in the United States, but it is in the heart of
pioneering country where new ideas still can find fertile field," Mr.
Leonard asserted. He said the mid-west looks forward while the east
looks backward.
Mr. Leonard indicated that the foundation will defend its case in
the New Jersey courts on the ground there is no qualified dianetic
committee on any state board from which a license to teach dianetics
can be obtained. Furthermore, he said, because dianetics is not
medicine but a mental science, an attempt was made to lump it with
psychiatry, which it bitterly disavows in all its literature and
practice.
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