Ant's First Scientology Certificate

I have been loaded with Scientology certificates in my time. Many of them are filed away, and probably should be put in the rubbish bin.

But this one, in 1956, was different from the others. In 1950's one did not get certificates for states as a preclear, and there were only three professional auditor levels. HPA (Hubbard Professional Auditor) from London (The equivalent in USA was Hubbard Certified Auditor, HCA, but certified in England was used to mean "certified insane" therefore we used a different term than the Americans.) That was the lowest level, and there was B.Scn (Bachelor of Scientology) and the highest level was D.Scn (Doctor of Scientology) which was supposedly given after one had completed a six weeks Advanced Clinical Course, and written a thesis.

There are three things we can note about this certificate.

Firstly I got the course partly on credit, and was not given the certificate until I had fully paid for the course (to the HASI - there was no encouragement to go and take a loan and pay in full, as there has been later).

Secondly although one had completed the course and passed the exam, you were not officially an HPA until Ron had signed the certificate. What you see is a scanned in copy of the certificate, and Ron's signature is visible. However time has taken its toll and Ron's signature and the date are not really visible on the certificate. So perhaps Ron is OT, has noticed that I have become the only Antologist, and so sort of regards me now as a squirrel and revoked the certificate (but he could not beat modern scanning technology)!

Thirdly, you will note that there are two seals on the certificate. The one on the lower left corner came with the certificate. In 1957 special processes called CCH processes were introduced, and the extra seal, red, on the right was a validation seal for those processes. I was around when those processes were in their infancy and was one of those struggling to imagine what "Tone 40" processing could be!.

In early '57, when I knew I was going to be the Director of The American College of Personal Efficiency in Dublin I got the certificate and a picture of a bust of L.Ron Hubbard framed so I could put them on my office wall. Since that time I have discovered that results, not certificates, count, so the certificate did not do me much good - but it has strong sentimental value.

(Ant March 2011)