Scientology and The Emotional Tone Scale

See this guy right here? That’s my grandson. That’s a photo I took of him as he walked up to his last at bat ever in college summer baseball on July 18, 2024. What, do you ask, does this have to do with Scientology and their emotional tone scale? Glad you asked.

L. Ron Hubbard began discussing the tone scale in lectures as early as 1951. The tone scale took center stage in a lot of them and what the tone scale was grew as he talked. It started out as a very small thing. The first course I took told me the tone scale consisted of emotions ranging from 0 which was death to 4.0 which enthusiasm. In between there were .005 Apathy; .05 Grief, 1 Fear; 1.1 Covert Hostility; 2 Anger; 2.5 Boredom; 3 Conservatism; 4 Enthusiasm. It was modified several times, with anger becoming 1.5 and 2.0 became Hostility. This tone scale was later expanded to include levels as low as –40 Total Failure and +40 Serenity of Beingness, meaning Hubbard assigned dozens of emotional tone levels to a person that were lower than death.

This is how the tone scale looked by 1971. 

The basics of the tone scale as outlined in courses and even the more recent Tone Scake books published by Scientology teach a person studying them that there are very specific levels on the tone scale and just by looking at a person, you will be able to spot where they are.

As a matter of fact, per Hubbard, all you have to do to control that person is to act like you are 1/2 step above them on the tone scale and you can get them to act how you want. Which shows that the tone scale was just one more control mechanism for Hubbard. 

Hubbard says is that anything below 2.0 is a minus emotion, something that you want to avoid and in order to attain the state where Hubbard you are experiencing plus emotions, you have to be exhilarated. Cheerful or enthusiastic isn’t good enough. You have to be exhilarated!

Note that some of the emotions a Scientologist is told are misemotions are pain, anxiety, sympathy and grief. A Scientologist is told that people who are low toned deserve no sympathy because they did it to themselves so for a person to have sympathy for someone who is a victim of a crime is a disservice to them. 

This leaves a very narrow band of emotions that a Scientologist is actually allowed to exhibit If they want to be thought of as upstat. 

Which brings me back to the photo of my grandson. A person would be hard pressed to place me on the tone scale at any time during the day. As a matter of fact, I’m usually at grumpy bear on my personal emotional tone scale first thing in the morning but by the time I have a cup of coffee and a dog kiss or two I’m at curious or hmmm what shall we do today. 

When I went to those last games of his summer college baseball career, my mood was fluctuating all over the place. When they had a walkoff home run to end the first of the last two games and my grandson was one of the players who was on base to come in, there was a whole lot of excitement going on. 

Between innings when I got flattened by a player who accidentally ran into me while running backwards, I experienced fear, anxiety, grief, more fear, relief, tiredness, pain, exhaustion, then excitement because the next game was starting.

When he stood at home base with that bat in his hands for his last at bat ever in summer collegiate baseball, I thought back through all the years I’ve been at baseball diamonds with him taking photos, all the hours spent in dugouts across the country watching and photographing his teams and I realized this was it. I was one proud grandma, because he had grown into such a fine man. Then I burst into tears.

Hubbard got it so wrong. You can’t just walk into the pages of a book someone else writes and make that your whole life. You have to write your own life or it’s not worth living.