Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

by L. Ron Hubbard

  This would be a manic-type insanity.

  He can be convinced, while hypnotized, that when he wakes he will feel so terrible that he will hope for nothing but death. This would be the depressive-type insanity.

  He can be told that all he can think about is how sick he is and that every malady of which he reads becomes his. This would make him react like a hypochondriac.

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  Thus we could go down the catalogue of mental ills and by concocting positive suggestions to create the state of mind, we could bring about, in the awakened subject, a semblance to every insanity.

  Understood that these are semblances. They are similar to insanity in that the subject would act like an insane person. He would not be an insane person. The moment the suggestion is relieved -- the subject being informed that it was a suggestion -- the aberration (and all these insanities, etc., are grouped under the heading of aberration) theoretically vanishes.* * An injunction here. These are tests. They have been made on people who could be hypnotized and people who could not be but who were drugged. They brought forth valuable data for dianetics. They can be duplicated only when you know dianetics unless you want to actually drive somebody insane by accident. For these suggestions do not always vanish. Hypnotism is a wild variable. It is dangerous and belongs in the parlor in the same way you would want an atom bomb there.

  The duplication of aberrations of all classes and kinds in subjects who have been hypnotized or drugged has demonstrated that there is some portion of the mind which is not in contact with the consciousness but which contains data.

  It was the search for this portion of the mind which led to the resolution of the problem of insanity, psycho-somatic ills and other aberrations. It was not approached through hypnotism, and hypnotism is just another tool, a tool which is of only occasional use in the practice of dianetics and is, indeed, not needed at all.

  Here we have an individual who is acting sanely, who is given a positive suggestion and who then temporarily acts insanely. His sanity is restored by the release of the suggestion into his consciousness, at which moment it loses its force upon him. But this is only a semblance of the mechanism involved. The actual insanity, one not laid now by some hypnotist, does not need to emerge into the consciousness to be released. There is this difference and others between hypnotism and the actual source of aberration; but hypnotism is a demonstration of its working parts.

  Review the first example of the positive suggestion. The subject was “unconscious,”

  which is to say, he was not in possession of complete awareness or self-determinism. He was given something he must do and the something was hidden from his consciousness. The operator gave him a signal. When the signal occurred, the subject performed an act. The subject gave reasons for the act which were not the real reasons for it. The subject found fault with the operator and the operator’s clothing but did not see that it was the tie which signaled the action. The suggestion was released and the subject no longer felt a compulsion to perform the act.

  These are the parts of aberration. Once one knows exactly what parts of what are aberrations, the whole problem is very simple. It seems incredible at first glance that the source could have remained so thoroughly hidden for so many thousands of years of research. But at, second glance, it becomes a wonder that the source was ever discovered. For it is hidden cunningly and well.

  “Unconsciousness” of the non-hypnotic variety is a little more rugged. It takes more than a few passes of the hand to cause “unconsciousness” of the insanity-producing variety.

  The shock of accidents, the anaesthetics used for operations, the pain of injuries and the deliriums of illness are the principal sources of what we call “unconsciousness.”

  The mechanism, in our analogue of the mind, is very simple. In comes a destructive wave of physical pain or a pervading poison such as ether and out go some or all of the fuses of the analytical mind. When it goes out, so go what we know as the standard memory banks.

  The periods of “unconsciousness” are blanks in the standard memory banks. These missing periods make up what dianetics calls the reactive mind bank.

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  The times when the analytical mind is in full operation plus the times when the reactive mind is in operation are a continuous line of consecutive recording for the entire period of life.

  During the periods when the analytical mind is cut out of circuit in full or in part, the reactive mind cuts in in full or in part. In other words, if the analytical mind is unfused so that it is half out of circuit, the reactive mind is half in circuit. No such sharp percentages are actually possible, but this is to give an approximation.

  When the individual is “unconscious” in full or in part, the reactive mind is cut in in full or in part. When he is fully conscious, his analytical mind is fully in command of the organism. When his consciousness is reduced, the reactive mind is cut into the circuit just that much.

  The moments which contain “unconsciousness” in the individual are contra-survival moments, by and large. Therefore it is vital that something take over so that the individual can go through motions to save the whole organism. The fighter who fights half out on his feet, the burned man who drags himself out of the fire -- these are cases when the reactive mind is valuable.

  The reactive mind is very rugged. It would have to be in order to stand up to the pain waves which knock out other sentience in the body. It is not very refined. But it is most awesomely accurate. It possesses a low order of computing ability, an order which is sub-moron, but one would expect a low order of ability from a mind which stays in circuit when the body is being crushed or fried.

  The reactive bank does not store memories as we think of them. It stores engrams. *

  These engrams are a complete recording, down to the last accurate detail, of every perception present in a moment of partial or full “unconsciousness.” They are just as accurate as any other recording in the body. But they have their own force. They are like phonograph records or motion pictures, if these contained all perceptions of sight, sound, smell, taste, organic sensation, etc.

  The difference between an engram and a memory, however, is quite distinct. An engram can be permanently fused into any and all body circuits and behaves like an entity.

  In all laboratory tests on these engrams they were found to possess “inexhaustible”

  sources of power to command the body. No matter how many times one was reactivated in an individual, it was still powerful. Indeed, it became even more able to exert its power in proportion to its reactivation.

  The only thing which could even begin to shake these engrams was the technique which developed into dianetic therapy, which will be covered in full in the third section of this volume.

  This is an example of an engram: A woman is knocked down by a blow. She is rendered “unconscious.” She is kicked and told she is a faker, that she is no good, that she is always changing her mind. A chair is overturned in the process. A faucet is running in the kitchen. A car is passing in the street outside. The engram contains a running record of all these perceptions: sight, sound, tactile, taste, smell, organic sensation, kinetic sense, joint position, thirst record, etc. The engram would consist of the whole statement made to her when she was

  “unconscious”: the voice tones and emotion in the voice, the sound and feel of the original and later blows, the tactile of the floor, the feel and sound of the chair overturning, the organic sensation of the blow, perhaps the taste of blood in her mouth or any other taste present there, the smell of the person attacking her and the smells in the room, the sound of the passing car’s motor and tires, etc.

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  These would all be considered something on the order of a “positive suggestion.” But there is something else here which is new, something which is not in the standard banks except by context: pain and painful emotion.

  These things are what make the difference between the standard banks and the reactive engram banks:
physical pain and painful emotion. Physical pain and painful emotion are the difference between an engram, which is the cause of aberration, all aberration, and a memory.*

  * In dianetics, a memory is considered to be any concept of perceptions stored in the standard memory banks which is potentially recallable by the “I.” A scene beheld by the eyes and perceived by the other senses becomes a record in the standard memory banks and later may be recalled by “I” for reference.

  We all have heard that bad experience is helpful to living and that without bad experience, man never learns. This may be very, very true. But it doesn’t embrace the engram.

  That isn’t experience. That is commanded action.

  Perhaps before Man had a large vocabulary, these engrams were of some use to him.

  They were survival in ways which will be developed later. But when Man acquired a fine, homonymic (words that sound the same but mean different things) language, and indeed, when he acquired any language, these engrams were much more a liability than a help. And now with Man well evolved, these engrams do not protect him at all but make him mad, inefficient and ill.

  The proof of any assertion lies in its applicability. When these engrams are deleted from the reactive mind bank, rationality and efficiency are enormously heightened, health is greatly increased and the individual computes rationally on the survival conduct pattern, which is to say, he enjoys himself and the society of those around him and is constructive and creative. He is destructive only when something actually threatens the sphere of his dynamics.

  These engrams, then, are entirely negative in value in this stage of Man’s development.

  When he was nearer the level of his animal cousins (who have, all of them, reactive minds of this same kind), he might have had use for the data. But language and his changed existence make any engram a distinct liability, and no engram has any constructive value.

  The reactive mind was provided to secure survival. It still pretends to act in that fashion. But its wild errors now lead only in the other direction.

  There are actually three kinds of engrams, all of them aberrative: First is the contra-survival engram. This contains physical pain, painful emotion, all other perceptions and menace to the organism. A child knocked out by a rapist and abused receives this type of engram. The contra-survival engram contains apparent or actual antagonism to the organism.

  The second engram type is the pro-survival engram. A child who has been abused is ill.

  He is told, while he is partially or wholly “unconscious,” that he will be taken care of, that he is dearly loved, etc. This engram is not taken as contra-survival but pro-survival. It seems to be in favor of survival. Of the two this last is the most aberrative since it is reinforced by the law of affinity which is always more powerful than fear. Hypnotism preys on this characteristic of the reactive mind, being a sympathetic address to an artificially unconscious subject.

  Hypnotism is as limited as it is because it does not contain, as a factor, physical pain, and painful emotion: things which keep an engram out of sight and moored below the level of

  “consciousness.”

  The third is the painful emotion engram which is similar to the other engrams. It is caused by the shock of sudden loss such as the death of a loved one.

  The reactive mind bank is composed exclusively of these engrams. The reactive mind thinks exclusively with these engrams. And it “thinks” with them in a way which would make 48

  Korzybski swear, for it thinks in terms of full identification, which is to say identities, one thing identical to another.

  If the analytical mind did a computation on apples and worms, it could be stated, probably, as follows: some apples have worms in them, other don’t; when biting an apple one occasionally finds a worm unless the apple has been sprayed properly; worms in apples leaves holes.

  The reactive mind, however, doing a computation on apples and worms as contained in its engram bank, would calculate as follows: apples are worms are bites are holes in apples are holes in anything are apples and always are worms are apples are bites, etc.

  The analytical mind’s computations might embrace the most staggering summations of calculus, the shifty turns of symbolic logic, the computations requisite to bridge-building or dress-making. Any mathematical equation ever seen came from the analytical mind and might be used by the analytical mind in resolving the most routine problems.

  But not the reactive mind! That’s so beautifully, wonderfully simple that it can be stated, in operation, to have just one equation: A = A = A = A = A.

  Start any computation with the reactive mind. Start it with the data it contains, of course. Any datum is just the same to it as any other datum in the same experience.

  An analytical computation done on the woman being kicked, as mentioned, would be that women get themselves into situations sometimes when they get kicked and hurt and men have been known to kick and hurt women.

  A reactive mind computation about his engram, as an engram, would be: the pain of the kick equals the pain of the blow equals the overturning chair equals the passing car equals the faucet equals the fact that she is a faker equals the fact that she is no good equals the fact that she changes her mind equals the voice tones of the man equals the emotion equals a faker equals a faucet running equals the pain of the kick equals organic sensation in the area of the kick equals the overturning chair equals changing one’s mind equals.... But why continue?

  Every single perception in this engram equals every other perception in this engram. What?

  That’s crazy? Precisely!

  Let us further examine our post-hypnotic positive suggestion of the touched tie and the removed coat. In this we have the visible factors of how the reactive mind operates.

  This post-hypnotic suggestion needs only an emotional charge and physical pain to make it a dangerous engram. Actually it is an engram of a sort. It is laid in by sympathy between the operator and subject, which would make it a sympathy engram -- pro-survival.

  Now we know that the operator had only to touch his tie to make the awakened subject remove his coat. The subject did not know what it was which caused him to remove his coat and found all manner of explanation for the action, none of which was the right one. The engram, the post-hypnotic suggestion in this case, was actually placed in the reactive mind bank. It was below the level of consciousness, it was compulsion springing from below the level of consciousness. And it worked upon the muscles to make the subject remove his coat. It was data fused into the circuits of the body below the command level of the analytical mind and operated not only upon the body but also upon the analytical mind itself.

  If this subject took off his coat every time he saw somebody touch a necktie, society would account him slightly mad. And yet there was no power of consent about this. If he had attempted to thwart the operator by refusing to remove the coat, the subject would have experienced great discomfort of one sort or another.

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  Let us now take an example of the reactive mind’s processes in a lower echelon of life: a fish swims into the shallows where the water is brackish, yellow, and tastes of iron. He has just taken a mouthful of shrimp when a bigger fish rushes at him and knocks against his tail.

  The small fish manages to get away but he has been physically hurt. Having negligible analytical powers, the small fish depends upon reaction for much of his choice of activity.

  Now he heals his tail and goes on about his affairs. But one day he is attacked by a larger fish and gets his tail bumped. This time he is not seriously hurt, merely bumped. But something has happened. Something within him considers that in his choice of action he is now being careless. Here is a second injury in the same area.

  The computation on the fish reactive level was: shallows equals brackish equals yellow equals iron taste equals pain in tail equals shrimp in mouth, and any one of these equals any other.

  The bump in the tail on the second occasion keyed-in the engram. It demo
nstrated to the organism that something like the first accident (identity thought) could happen again.

  Therefore, beware!

  The small fish, after this, swims into brackish water. This makes him slightly

  “nervous.” But he goes on swimming and finds himself in yellow and brackish water. And still he does not turn back. He begins to get a small pain in his tail. But he keeps on swimming.

  Suddenly he gets a taste of iron and the pain in his tail turns on heavily. And away he goes like a flash. No fish was after him. There were shrimp to be had there. But away he went anyway.

  Dangerous place! And if he had not turned away, he would have really gotten himself a pain in the tail.

  The mechanism is survival activity of a sort. In a fish it may serve a purpose. But in a man, who takes off a coat every time somebody touches a tie, the survival mechanism has long outlived its time. But it is there!

  Let us further investigate our young man and the coat. The signal for the coat removal was very precise. The operator touched his tie. This is equivalent to any or all of the perceptions the fish received and which made the fish turn back. The touch of the tie could have been a dozen things. Any one of the dozen might have signaled the removal of the coat.

  In the case of the woman who was knocked out and kicked, any perception in the engram she received has some quality of restimulation. Running water from a faucet might not have affected her greatly. But water running from a faucet plus a passing car might have begun some slight reactivation of the engram, a vague discomfort in the areas where she was struck and kicked, not enough yet to cause her real pain but there all the same. To the running water and the passing car we add the sharp falling of a chair and she experiences a shock of mild proportion. Add now the smell and voice of the man who kicked her and the pain begins to grow. The mechanism is telling her that she is in dangerous quarters, that she should leave.

  But she is not a fish, she is a highly sentient being, to our knowledge the most complex mental structure so far evolved on Earth, organism of the species, Man. There are many other factors in the problem than this one engram. She stays. The pains in the areas where she was abused become a predisposition to illness or are chronic illness in themselves, minor it is true in the case of this one incident, but illness just the same. Her affinity with the man who beat her may be so high that the analytical level, being assisted by a normally high general tone, may counter against these pains. But if that level is low, without much to assist it, then the pains can become major.