Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

by L. Ron Hubbard

  7.

  Bring patient to present time.

  8.

  Be sure he is in present time.

  9.

  Give him canceller word.

  10.

  Restore full awareness of his surroundings.

  The patient’s time track, in the lowest level of attention units, is always in excellent condition. It can be depended upon to reach any date and hour of his life and all the data in it.

  In the higher levels of awareness, this time track may appear to be in very foul condition. The reactive mind engram circuits stand between these lower levels -- right up against the banks --

  and the higher levels which contain “I.” The lower levels contain only a shadow of the force of

  “I” and appear to be another “I” in a case of multi-valent personality.

  You can draw this on a piece of scratch paper and it would be helpful if you would do so. Draw a tall rectangle (the standard banks) to the left of the page. Draw half a dozen circles up against the right side of this rectangle for a representation of the file clerk -- the bank monitor units. Now draw, about the center of the sheet, a large rectangle. Black it in. This is the area of the reactive engram circuits. It is not the reactive bank. It is the circuit pattern from the reactive engram bank, which borrows from the analyzer to make demons, vocal thinking, etc. Now, to the right of the page, draw a white rectangle. This is the portion of the analyzer which is “consciousness” and “I.”

  The whole task of therapy is to get that black rectangle, the reactive engram bank circuits, deleted so that from the standard bank to the left of the sheet to the analyzer portion to the right of the sheet is all analyzer. It can’t be done with a knife as some people have supposed, evaluating the situation from their own engrams, for that black area you have drawn is all analyzer rendered useless by engrams and when therapy is done, it will all be available for thinking. This increases I.Q. to an enormous extent.

  Now suppose that the bottom of your picture is conception and the top is present time.

  The vertical route up and down, then, is the time track. In this graph it can be supposed that present time just keeps adding up higher and higher, further and further from conception in the form of new construction (an analogy). For “I” to get data from the standard banks to the left,

  “I” would have to work through this black rectangle, the reactive mind circuits. To a large 131

  extent “I” manages to get data from around this black area. But to a much larger extent it doesn’t.

  Now suppose that we draw a vertical line at the right of the picture. This line is

  “awareness.” Consider that it can be moved, still vertical, to the left. As the line passes toward the left, we get deeper and deeper “trance.” As the line moves into the reactive mind area, it becomes hypnotic trance. Now as it moves even further left and into the circles we are calling

  “file clerk,” it becomes the amnesia trance of hypnotism. Thus, anywhere we place this line we establish a “depth of trance.” We want to work over to the right of the reactive bank, nearest the awake level, so that we can keep “I” in contact with his surroundings and keep unwanted data from coming through which will make the patient chronically uncomfortable. If the patient instantly slides from the right all the way to the left so that the attention units, the circles, of the file clerk itself are present, and does so the instant you count from one to seven, he is a hypnotic subject. He may not be aware, when he wakens, of what has taken place, for “I” was out of contact. Work him there, for he will have full sonic, etc., but be very, very careful to work very early in his prenatal area. He might not be able to recall what has taken place and a late engram which, if tapped, will not reduce, may have its full force opened up on “I” when the patient regains possession of himself. Further, you might give him positive suggestion by accident. Work by preference with trance depth well to the right of the reactive bank.

  The characteristics of the units we label “file clerk” are similar in desires to those of the basic individual when he is cleared. Thus, in any patient, the basic personality can be reached for here is a sample of it. But the auditor should be content to know it is there; as the clearing goes forward, he will see more and more of it. The individual is himself, his personality does not alter, it simply becomes what he wanted it to be all the time at his optimum moments.

  The units up against the standard banks can be considered the file clerk. But the file clerk has more than just the standard bank which he can tap. He also has the entire engram bank from which he can pull forth data.

  The time track may have several aspects to the preclear. There is actually no track there except time and time is invisible: but the awareness, the “I,” can return along it. The track is always there, stretched out. But ideas of it continually occur and recur in the same patient. It may get all bunched up. It may be very long. It may be that he cannot get on it at all (here’s the schizophrenic -- he is off his time track). But it is there. It is the filing system by time and “I”

  can be returned back along time by the simple request that he do so. If he does not, he is stuck in the present or an engram, which is easy to resolve. And so forth.

  Now let us consider the engram bank. It was drawn as a black rectangle in the above sketch. Let us alter that a trifle and draw all this again, with the rectangles represented as triangles with all their points downwards and together but all else as before -- the standard banks, the analyzer (consciousness), and “I.” This is a working model now, an analogy, of what the auditor is trying to contact. It is as if the engram bank itself existed in that black triangle. Actually it doesn’t, only its circuits, but all we need to visualize is that it does.

  Therefore, there is a thin point at the bottom. “I” and the file clerk can get together here. This is the bottom of the time track. This is immediately after conception. A little higher up, let’s say two-and-one-half months after conception, it is a little harder for “I” and the file clerk to achieve contact. There is more reactive circuit between them. At seven months after conception it is more difficult. And at twenty years of age it has approached impossibility in most cases without dianetic technique.

  Hence, the auditor will find it expedient to work in the prenatal area and as early in that as possible. If he can clear the time from conception to birth, including birth, his task is nine-tenths complete. To clear the entire reactive bank is his goal.

  The reactive bank is like a pyramid which is fairly well armored everywhere but just under the point, and which becomes unarmored when the point is contacted. This is taking the reactive bank in an exposed sector. The effort is to get into the basic area, contact early 132

  engrams, erase the basic-basic engram by recountings and then progress upwards, erasing engrams. These engrams apparently vanish. Actually it takes a hard search to discove once they are really gone. They exist as memory in the standard bank, but that memory is so unimportant, having been integrated now as experience, that it cannot aberrate. Nothing in the standard bank can aberrate. Only the contents of the reactive bank can aberrate -- moments of

  “unconsciousness” and what was recorded within them -- and locks. The auditor, in his work, considers an engram erased when it vanishes, when the pre-clear can no longer contact any part of it, but only after the pre-clear has thoroughly re-experienced it, complete with somatics.*

  This inverted pyramid, in its upper reaches, is affect. In the lower reaches, it is the primary cause of aberration. The cement that holds this inverted pyramid together is physical pain and painful emotion. All the physical pain ever recorded by the organism and all the painful emotion are parts of this inverted pyramid.

  The auditor first discharges the painful emotion from later life as it was displayed in

  “conscious moments.” He runs these periods as true engrams until the pre-clear is no longer affected by them. Then he tries to contact basic-basic, that first engram. He reduces all
engrams he contacts en route to that primary goal. In every session he tries to reach basic-basic until he is certain he has it.

  Basic-basic is the bottom point. Once it has been gained, an erasure is begun during which engram after engram is “re-experienced” with all somatics until it is gone. Before basic-basic had been reached, the auditor may have had to run engrams twenty times before they reduced. Later he may have found they reduced in five runs. Then he contacts and erases basic-basic. If the patient has sonic by this time -- or if he has had it all along -- the engrams start erasing with one or two recountings.

  The file clerk is smart. The auditor who does not credit the ability of these attention units will involve the case beyond necessity and will lengthen it. The file clerk may hand things out by phrases, by somatics, by time. Whatever he hands out ordinarily will reduce on recountings. By working with, not trying to command, the file clerk, the auditor will find his case steadily improving until it is released or fully cleared. The only time the auditor disregards this is when he uses the repeater system, which will be described.

  We have “I” in a reverie; we return him to a period in his life along his time track; the file clerk gives incidents forth which the pre-clear re-experiences; the auditor makes the preclear recount the engram until it is relieved or has “vanished”* (all engrams will eventually

  “vanish” after basic-basic is erased); anything new the file clerk offers, even during the recounting, is addressed by the auditor to make the pre-clear re-experience it. That is the total sum of activity in dianetics. There are, as accessories, the repeater technique and a few short-cuts. This is therapy. Amplification is needed, of course, and will be found in the ensuing pages to give the auditor all the data he needs. But this is the entire outline of dianetic therapy.

  * The words “vanished” or “erased,” when applied to an engram which has been treated mean that the engram has disappeared from the engram bank. It cannot be found afterwards except by search of the standard memory.

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  CHAPTER VI

  The Laws of Returning

  The engram has the aspect of -- and is not -- a live entity which protects itself in various ways. Any and all phrases in it can be considered commands. These commands react on the analytical mind in such a way as to cause the analytical mind to behave erratically.

  Dianetic therapy is parallel to the methods of thought and thinking itself. Anything which reacts against dianetics and the auditor can uniformly and without exception be found to react in just that way on the patient’s analytical mind. Conversely, the patient’s problems of thinking in his usual activities are the auditor’s problems in therapy.

  The bulk of these “commands” the engrams contain are not computable in any way, since they are contradictory or demand unreasonable acts. It is the impossibility of computing them and reconciling them to thought and existence which makes the patient aberrated. Let us take an engram which comes from one of Mother’s bowel movements. She is straining, which causes compression, which brings about “unconsciousness” in the unborn child. Then, if she habitually talks to herself (a monologist) as an enormous number of aberrated women do, she may say, “Oh, this is hell. I am all jammed up inside. I feel so stuffy I can’t think. This is too terrible to be borne.”

  This may be in the basic area. The dream mechanism of the mind (which thinks in puns mostly, symbologists to the contrary) may bring forth a dream about hell-fire as the engram is approached. The pre-clear may be sure that he is going to descend into fire if he goes on his time track toward this engram. Further, he may think his time track is all jammed up. This will mean, perhaps, that the incidents are all in one place on it. So much for “This is hell,” and “all jammed up inside.” Now let us take a look at what happens with “I’m so stuffy, I can’t think.”

  The pre-clear sniffles because he thinks this means a cold in his nose. And as for “This is too terrible to be borne,” he is filled with an emotion of terror at the thought of touching the engram, for this command says it is too painful to bear. Additionally, engrams being literal in their action, he may think that he was too terrible to be born.

  The emotional reaction to hell, from some other place on the track -- as contained in some other engram -- may say that “going to hell” is loud sobbing. Hence he does not “want”

  to recount this engram. Further, he is terrified of it because it is “too terrible to be borne.” That Mother was only discussing with her ambivalent self the necessity of laxatives is never entered into the computation. For the reactive mind does not reason, it thinks in identities, seeking to command the analytical mind.

  There is only as much data as is in the engram and the analytical reaction to this unthinking thing is utterly literal.

  Let us look at another. This is a coitus experience. It has, as its somatic, varying pressure. It is not painful and, by the way, no matter how painful these engrams may be in present time when restimulated, no matter how forceful, when they are actually contacted, their reexperienced pain is very mild, no matter what it was when received. So this is a shaking up of the unborn child, that is all. But it says, “Oh, darling, I’m afraid you’ll come in me. I’ll just die if you come in me. Oh please don’t come in me!”

  What does the analytical mind do with this? Does it think about coitus? Does it worry about pregnancy? No, emphatically not. The engram that would make one think about coitus would say, “Think about coitus!” and the engram that contained a worry about pregnancy would say, “I am worried about pregnancy.” The pain is not severe in this coitus experience but it specifically states that the engram is not to be entered. “Do not come in me!” He would die if he did, wouldn’t he? It says so right there. And the patient finds himself wandering around the track until the auditor uses repeater technique (as will be covered).

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  How about another type of engram? Let us suppose that our poor patient has been unlucky enough to get a Junior tagged on him. Let us suppose his name is Ralph and his father’s name is Ralph. (Be careful of these Junior cases, they are unusually complex sometimes.) Mother (see the Kinsey report, if you’ve any doubts) is having a quiet affair on the side with Jim. This coitus somatic is no more painful than being gently sat upon, but the patient has a terrible time with it. Mother: “Oh, honey, you are so wonderful. I wish Ralph were more like you but he isn’t. He just doesn’t seem to be able to excite a girl at all.” Lover:

  “Oh, Ralph isn’t so bad. I like him.” Mother: “You don’t know his pride. If Ralph found out about this, it would kill him. He would just die, I know.” Lover: “Don’t worry, Ralph’ll never hear.”

  This little gem of an engram is more common than one would suppose before he begins to get an embryo-eye view of Mother. This won’t compute in the analyzer as data. Therefore it is a worry. (A worry is contradictory engram commands which cannot be computed.) Ralph, Junior, finds that he is very shy sexually. That is the aberrative pattern. Approaching it in therapy we find we have a sympathy computation with the lover. After all, he said Ralph wasn’t so bad, that he liked Ralph. Well, the only Ralph is, of course, to the reactive mind, Junior. This keeps our patient from approaching this engram because he thinks he will lose a friend if he touches it.

  Further, on the aberrative side, Junior has always worried about people’s pride. As we contact this in therapy, he shies violently from it. After all, if he found out about it it would

  “kill him dead right where he lies.” And there is another thing here, a sonic shut-off. It says right there that Ralph will never hear. This is survival stuff. That is what the cells believe.

  Therefore Ralph never hears in recall. There will be more sonic shut-offs; Mother is promiscuous and that generally means blockage on the second dynamic. Blockage on the second dynamic often means she dislikes children. In short, this would be an attempted abortion case which stabbed Junior full of enough holes to supply a cheese factory for some time.

  Junior, now a man,
may have extended hearing because he is frightened in general of

  “life.” But his sonic recall is zero. This engram, then, would have to be sorted out through the demon circuits as “impressions” which come to the mind. The auditor, taking what the patient says about this, may very soon guess its content and explode it by repeater technique.

  Now take the case of the mother who, a soul of propriety if a little on the whiny side, discovers she is pregnant and goes to the doctor. Mother: “I think I’m pregnant. I’m afraid I am.” Doctor punches her around for a while, knocking the unborn child, who is our pre-clear thirty years later, into an “unconscious” state. Doctor: “I don’t think so.” Mother: “I’m really afraid I am. I’m sure I’m caught. I just know it.” Doctor (more punching): “Well, it’s hard to tell this early.”

  It says right there that this man patient of ours is pregnant. If we look, we’ll see he has a paunch. That’s good survival, that is. And in therapy we find he is afraid he exists: I am afraid I am. And suddenly he isn’t moving on the time track. Why? He’s caught. That doesn’t mean he’s pregnant, that means he is caught. Further, he won’t be able to recount it. Why?

  Because it is hard to tell this early. Consequently he doesn’t speak about it. We free him on the track with repeater technique.

  Oh, this language of ours which says everything it doesn’t mean! Put into the hands of the moronic reactive mind, what havoc it wreaks! Literal interpretation of everything! Part of the aberrative pattern of the person who had the above engram was great cautiousness about advancing any opinion. After all, it was hard to tell, this early.

  Now let us take an engram from a girl patient whose father was badly aberrated. He strikes Mother because he is afraid Mother is pregnant and Father is blocked on Dynamics One, Two, Three and Four. Father: “Get out! Get out! I know you haven’t been true to me! You 135