Scientology: A History of Man Hot

This book is the first Scientology book, riding on the heels of Handbook for Preclears (primarily a Dianetics book, but the first to bring up the subject of Scientology) and diving headlong into the topics of Whole Track, Thetans and auditing with the aid of the E-Meter.
Originally titled 'What to Audit,' the book presents a number of incidents commonly found by auditors when past lives were contacted in auditing. In this regard, it makes a good companion piece to 1958's 'Have You Lived Before This Life?' which presents cases of individual incidents contacted in past lives during auditing.
What the book is saying is, 'Here is a list of commonly found incidents on the whole track. Here are some hypotheses/theories behind them and other phenomena connected with them. Whether they are real, or dub-in, is irrelevant, as is whether or not you believe they exist (although the appearance of these incidents independently and commonly in whole track auditing lends support to the idea that these are real). It has been found, and you will find, that application of this material produces case gain.'
The book has been mangled over the years by misunderstanding. L. Ron Hubbard's first son later claimed to have written the book himself while high on Benzedrine (an assertion unsupported by the preponderance of evidence). When this book was originally produced, it was but a small booklet, inexpensively produced, and meant to accompany a number of other small, inexpensive publications (Electropsychometric Auditing, The Individual Track Map, etc.) and lectures by LRH bridging the gap in development between Handbook for Preclears and History of Man. As such, it represents only a small part of a much larger body of data which is typically not encountered outside of Academy training (correct me if I am wrong on this).
If you were to go the modern Church's route, chronologically reading and studying 'The Basics,' this is where the gradient bugs. I would actually recommend taking this book on after gaining a good understanding of Scientology as found in Fundamentals of Thought and Scientology 8-8008 first. An interesting historical side note, the publication of this book marked the departure of legendary science fiction guru Forry Ackerman from the Dianetics and Scientology movement.

I've read the book, and I can't wait to do the books and lectures together.

Reading this book with no good reality about ones own past or the past of others meaning the time track and including earlier lives is a waste. It is just unreal. But when one audits people and they really do have illnesses and weird pains and emotions which trouble them in life and they just go away only by suddenly finding out what happened to them in earlier lives - no matter how unreal - then this book gets real and one is just happy to have it. So, not for beginners. And honestly, I do not even care if it is real to me or not. It just matters if the person feels better and those problems are gone.

History of Man is a cold blooded history... It is "cold blooded" because LRH did not hold back any punches with this book. In it he gives you a 1950's 1st glimpse inside the whole track unfettered by "confidential bulletins" or edited later by LRH to give us clearer explanations or any missing descriptions of his whole track research/discoveries. You get the raw data in these very early, heady days of whole track research.

I read this book (and every other book LRH wrote) before I stepped foot in any Scientology "organization" (bought my books by mail at pubs UK and a distant mission). When I did finally sign up for a Dianetics course at an organization in LA, I was surprised that many people on course or on staff did not read all or most of LRH's books... including this one. Many have not read it because it is not on any intro course or maybe because it is just too cold blooded... Ha.. Anyway, I highly recommend History of Man, but after you have read some or many other books, as I did....

This was my introduction to the theory of the GE, of Genetic Lines, Theta Lines, and the idea of evolutionary paths for both body and spirit. Also contained is the first look at the subject of entities. Let's face it though. History of Man is certainly not everyone's "cold-blooded, factual account" of their last umpteen trillion years. This is a mess of a book that clouds insightful snippets of earlier theory with plain, bare-faced idiocy (jaw pain anyone?)