1st American ACC: Exteriorization & the Phenomena of Space

I found out that whenever I trained an auditor well, when he walked out into the society, there was a spreading pool of light going from him." —L. Ron Hubbard

With the completion of the Philadelphia Doctorate Course, Scientology 8-8008 and The Factors , L. Ron Hubbard had discovered the potentials of Operating Thetan and the route to its accomplishment. But no matter the heights he had now achieved, his next step of research and development was to be even more momentous. Specifically, the refinement and simplification of procedures and processes until they could be applied by any auditor to the achievement of those potentials by every being.

To that end, he set up eight offices on the second and third floors of 726 Cooper Street in Camden, New Jersey, for what was initially called a Special Course in Advanced Technique. In fact, it was a course so special that out of a deluge of applicants, only the twelve best auditors across the planet were chosen to attend—literally handpicked by Mr. Hubbard himself.

And so it was that on that historic day, in October 1953, L. Ron Hubbard gave the opening lecture of the very first Advanced Clinical Course. Over the next six weeks he instructed auditors in his watershed discoveries on exteriorization and its relation to rehabilitating a being to native state. Detailing its exact theory and mechanics, as well as its application through the techniques of Standard Operating Procedure 8 (SOP 8), he made it clear that exteriorization is not a process but the natural condition being restored to every preclear.

Having established SOP 8 as the means to exteriorization, Mr. Hubbard covered the theory and application of what underlay each of its seven steps, including such monumental breakthroughs as:

• Making space —the principles intrinsic to a being’s ability to operate as a thetan exterior;
• Anchor points —and their relationship to maintaining the preclear’s space between himself and the body as well as the auditor’s role in rehabilitating the preclear’s ability to create, vary and vanish that space;
• Pervasion —the true nature of how a thetan knows. And with that, how pervasion relates to beingness, havingness and the ability of a thetan to generate enough energy to do virtually anything;
• And, the factors of subjective auditing versus objective auditing —defined and detailed with the why and when each is employed.

But there was more. Mr. Hubbard opened a clinic right on the premises and throughout the ACC—and under his direct supervision—the students audited preclears ranging from new public having no previous knowledge of Scientology, to the most “impossible” of cases. This provided him with a testing ground to research and further refine his techniques. And it was in just this way that he was to discover the means to plumb and resolve the greatest depths of human aberration by applying the discoveries and techniques of the very highest levels of beingness.

Therein also lay the story of what would unfold over the next year. For notwithstanding the fact that the Advanced Clinical Course was already in progress (and also notwithstanding Mr. Hubbard’s insistence that he would only train a select few) auditors world over were no longer just “applying” to enroll—they were demanding. And just how L. Ron Hubbard responded is now the stuff of legend: No less than eight different Advanced Clinical Courses over a period of 12 months, comprising more than 500 lectures, and which would culminate in the route to exterior OT ability.

Welcome, then, to the Advanced Clinical Course. And to where it all began—in Camden, New Jersey, on October 6, 1953.