Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

by L. Ron Hubbard

were no virgin when I married you. I should have killed you long ago! Now you’re pregnant.

  Get out!”

  The girl, some five weeks after conception, is knocked “unconscious” by the blow to Mother’s abdomen. She has a severe engram here because it has painful emotional value which she will never be able to dramatize satisfactorily. The aberrative pattern here demonstrates itself in hysterics whenever a man might accuse her of not being true. She was a virgin when she was married twenty-one years after this engram was received, but she was sure she was not.

  She has had a “childhood delusion” that her father was likely to kill her. And she is always afraid of being pregnant because it says now she is pregnant, which means always, since time is a march of “nows.” In therapy we try to get near this engram. We return the patient to basic area and suddenly find her talking about something which happened when she was five years of age. We return her again and now she is talking about something which happened when she was ten years of age. The auditor, observing any such reaction as this, knows he is handling a bouncer. It says, “Get out!” and the patient gets out. The auditor recognizes what is wrong, uses repeater technique, and reduces or erases the engram.

  Always and invariably, the analytical mind reacts to these engrams as though commanded. It performs on the track as these engrams state. And it computes about the case or about life as these engrams dictate. Healthy things to have around, engrams! Real, good survival! Survival good enough to lay any man in his grave.

  The auditor is not much worried by the phrases which assist therapy. An engram received from Father beating Mother which says: “Take that! Take it, I tell you. You’ve got to take it!” means that our patient has possibly had tendencies as a kleptomaniac. (Such things are the whole source of the impulses of a thief, the test being that when an auditor erases all such engrams in a patient, the patient no longer steals.) The auditor will find it eagerly recounted because its content offers it to the analytical mind.

  The whole species of engrams which say, “Come back here! Now stay here!” as Fathers are so fond of saying, account for a snap back to an engram when therapy is entered.

  The patient goes straight back to it the moment it is exposed. When recounted the command is no longer effective. But while that engram existed, unentered, it was fully capable of sending people to an institution to lie in a foetal position. Anyone left in institutions who has not been given shocks or pre-frontal lobotomy and who suffers from this type of insanity can be released from such an engram and restored to present time simply by use of repeater technique.

  It sometimes takes only half an hour.

  Traveling on the track, then, and wandering through the computations the analyzer is compelled by these engrams to attempt is something like playing a child’s game which has a number of squares and along which one is supposed to move a “man.” A game could actually be composed on the basis of this time track and engram commands. It would be similar to parchesi. Move so many squares, land on one which says, “Get out!” which means one would go back to present time or toward it. Move so many squares and then lose a move because this square on which we now land says, “Stay here!” and the “man” would stay until the auditor let him out by technique (but because this is struck by therapy, it would have no power to hold long). Then move so many squares to one which said, “Go to sleep,” at which the “man”

  would have to go to sleep. Move so many squares until one was hit which said, “Nobody must find out,” and so there would be no square. Move so many until one was reached which said,

  “I’m afraid,” at which the “man” would be afraid. Move again to a square which said, “I must go away,” so the “man” would go away. Move once more to a square which says, “I’m not here,” and the square would be missing. And so forth and so forth.

  The classes of commands which particularly trouble the auditor are only a few. Because the mind actually does some part of its thinking, especially when remembering, by return, even when the individual is not returning, all these commands also impede the thought processes of the mind. In therapy they are particularly irksome and are the constant target of attention of the auditor.

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  First is the patient-ejector species of command. These are colloquially called

  “bouncers.” They include such things as “Get out!” “Don’t ever come back,” “I’ve got to stay away,” etc. etc., including any combination of words which literally mean ejection.

  Second is the patient-holder species of command. These include such things as “Stay here,” “Sit right there and think about it,” “Come back and sit down,” “I can’t go,” “I mustn’t leave,” etc.

  Third is the engram-denyer species of command which, literally translated, means that the engram doesn’t exist: “I’m not here,” “This is getting nowhere,” “I must not talk about it,”

  “I can’t remember,” etc.

  Fourth is the engram-grouper species of command which, literally translated, means that all incidents are in one place on the time track: “I’m jammed up,” “Everything happens at once,” “Everything comes in on me at once,” “I’ll get even with you,” etc.

  Fifth is the patient-misdirector which sends the pre-clear in the wrong direction, makes him go earlier when he should be going later, go later when he should go earlier, etc. “You can’t go back at this point,” “You’re turned around,” etc.

  The bouncer sends the pre-clear soaring back toward present time. The holder keeps him right where he is. The denyer makes him feel that there is no incident present. The fourth, the grouper, foreshortens his time track so that there is no time track. The misdirector reverses the necessary direction of travel.

  Contacting any engram causes the pre-clear to react “analytically.” Just as in the case of an engram being restimulated, the commands are impinged upon his analyzer, and although the analyzer may firmly believe it has just computed the reaction all of its own accord, it is actually speaking straight out of the content of an engram or engrams.

  This is the method of repeater technique.

  As he goes back along the track contacting engrams, the pre-clear runs into areas of

  “unconsciousness” which are occluded by “unconsciousness” or emotion. In most early engrams the pre-clear can be expected to yawn and yawn. It is not the command “to sleep”

  which is responsible for this: the “unconsciousness” is releasing (boiling off, the auditors call i t ) . A p r e - c l e a r m a y , f o r a s p a c e o f t w o h o u r s , f u m b l e a r o u n d , d r o p o f f i n t o

  “unconsciousness,” appear doped, start to go to sleep, without any such command being present.

  Part of the engram bundle of data is the analyzer shut-off. When he is returned and an engram is contacted, the pre-clear then experiences an analyzer attenuation, which means he is much less able to think in the area.

  Boiling-off “unconsciousness” is a process very necessary to therapy, for this

  “unconsciousness” could be restimulated in the everyday life of the individual and, when restimulated, make his wits shut off just a little or a very great deal, slowing down his thought processes.

  The aspect of “unconsciousness,” then, reduces the pre-clear’s awareness whenever it is contacted. He has dreams, he mumbles foolish things, he flounders. His analyzer is penetrating the veil which kept him from the engram. But it is also highly susceptible, when in this state, to an engram command.

  When urged by the auditor to go through the engram and recount it (although the auditor knows it may take minutes for this “unconsciousness” to boil off enough to let the patient through) the pre-clear may complain that “I can’t go back at this point.” The auditor promptly takes note of this. It is an engram command coming through. He does not apprise the 137

  patient of this knowledge; the patient usually doesn’t know what he’s saying. If the patient then continues to have trouble, the auditor tells him, �
�Say, ‘I can’t go back at this point.’” The patient then repeats this, the auditor making him go over it and over it. Suddenly the somatic turns on and the engram is contacted.

  In interviewing a patient, the auditor notes carefully without appearing to do so, what phrases the patient chooses and repeats about his ills or about dianetics. After he has placed the patient in reverie, if he discovers the patient, for instance, insists he “can’t go any place,” the auditor makes him repeat the phrase.

  Repetition of such a phrase, over and over, sucks the patient back down the track and into contact with an engram which contains it. It may happen that this engram will not release --

  having too many before it -- but it will not release only in case it has that same phrase in an earlier engram. So the repeater technique is continued with the auditor making the patient go earlier and earlier fur it. If all goes on schedule the patient will very often let out a chuckle or a laugh of relief. The phrase has been sprung. The engram has not been erased, but that much of it will not thereafter influence therapy.

  Anything the patient does about engrams and any words he uses to describe the action are contained, usually, in those engrams. Repeater technique takes the charge off the phrases so that the engrams can be approached.

  This technique, of course, can very occasionally land the patient in trouble, but the kind of trouble into which one can get in dianetics is not very severe. The engram, restimulated in everyday life, can be and is violent. Murders, rapes and arsons, attempted abortions, backwardness in school, -- any aberrated aspect of life -- stems from these engrams. But the act of approaching them in dianetic therapy goes on another channel, a channel closer to the source of the engram. Ordinarily, acting on an unsuspecting individual, the engram has enormous motor and speech power, ties up great numbers of circuits in the mind which should be used for rationality, and generally effects havoc: its contacts are “soldered-in” and cannot be thrown out by the analyzer. In therapy the patient is headed toward the engram: that act alone begins to disconnect some of its “permanent leads.” A patient can be gotten into an engram which, unless approached on the therapy route, might have made him curl up like a foetus and get shipped off to the nearest institution. On the therapy route, which is a return down the time track, the most powerful holder has its force limited: a patient can get into a holder which in normal life might be a psychosis: his only manifestation, perhaps, is that when he is told to

  “Come up to present time,” he simply opens his eyes without actually traversing the interval up the track to present time. He does not suspect he is in a holder until the auditor, watchful for such a manifestation, feeds him repeater technique.

  AUDITOR: Are you in present time?

  PRE-CLEAR: Sure.

  AUDITOR: How do you feel?

  PRE-CLEAR: Oh, I’ve got a slight headache.

  AUDITOR: Close your eyes. Now say: “Stay here.”

  PRE-CLEAR: All right. Stay here. Stay here. Stay here. (Several times) AUDITOR: Are you moving?

  PRE-CLEAR: No.

  AUDITOR: Say “I’m caught. I’m caught.”

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  PRE-CLEAR: I’m caught. (Several times)

  AUDITOR: Are you moving on the track?

  PRE-CLEAR: Nope.

  AUDITOR: Say, “I’m trapped.”

  PRE-CLEAR: I’m trapped. I -- Ouch, my head!

  AUDITOR: Keep going over it.

  PRE-CLEAR: I’m trapped. I’m trapped. I’m trapped, Ouch! That’s worse! (His somatic is getting stronger as he approaches the engram holding him on the other side of the

  “unconsciousness” veil)

  AUDITOR: Keep going over it.

  PRE-CLEAR: I’m trapped -- “Oh, God, I’m trapped. I’ll never get out of this place. I’ll never get out. I’m trapped!”

  AUDITOR: Contact it closely. Make sure there is nothing more in it. (A trick to keep the preclear from replaying what he himself has just said and keep running the engram) PRE-CLEAR: My head hurts! Let me come up to present time!

  AUDITOR: Go through it again. (If the pre-clear comes up with this much charge, he’ll be unhappy and the incident may be hard to enter next time) PRE-CLEAR: “Oh, God, I’m trapped. I’m afraid I’m trapped (new word showed up). I’ll never get out of this place as long as I live. I’m trapped. I’ll never get out. I’m trapped.”

  (aside) She’s crying. “Oh, why did I ever have to marry such a man!”

  AUDITOR: How’s your head?

  PRE-CLEAR: Hurts less. Say, that’s a dirty trick. She’s pounding herself on the stomach.

  That’s mean! Why, confound her!

  AUDITOR: Re-experience it. again. Let’s make sure there isn’t more in it. (Same mechanism to keep the pre-clear from replaying what he said before rather than what he now gets from the engram. If he replays rather than re-experiences, the engram won’t lift) PRE-CLEAR: (Does so, getting some new words and several sounds including the thud of the blows on her abdomen and an auto horn (bulb type) in the street outside) Don’t tell me I have to run this thing again.

  AUDITOR: Recount it, please.

  PRE-CLEAR: Well, so this dame tries to bust my head in and get rid of me. And so I jumped out and beat hell out of her.

  AUDITOR: Please re-experience the engram.

  PRE-CLEAR: (Starts to do so, suddenly finds out that like a piece of string with a loop in it, this engram has straightened out and contains more data where the loops were). “I’ve got to think of something to tell Harry. He’ll jump all over me.” ( This was the source of his joking --

  “jumped out, etc.”)

  AUDITOR: Please go over it again. There may be more in it.

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  PRE-CLEAR: (Does so, old parts of it reduce, two new sounds appear, her footsteps and running water. Then he is happy laughs at it. This engram is released because it may not have entirely vanished. Such an engram is in this shape only when it is contacted prior to basic-basic.)

  This is both repeater technique and an engram talked into recession. This engram may appear again with a very faint additional charge after basic-basic is contacted, but it has lost all power to aberrate or give out a psycho-somatic headache or other illness. Yet this engram, not contacted by therapy, was quite enough to make this patient, when a boy, scream with terror every time he found he could not get out of some closed space (claustrophobia).

  The repeater technique is the one particular phase of dianetics which requires cleverness from the auditor. Given persistency and patience, any auditor can succeed in the other phases of the science with minimal intelligence. In the repeater technique he must learn how to think --

  for therapy purposes -- like an engram. And he will have to observe how the subject is conducting himself along the time track. And he will have to observe the type of reaction the subject has and draw from this the conclusion as to what sort of command is troubling the subject when the subject himself either does not cooperate or does not know.

  This is not to say that the repeater technique is hard: it is not. But the ability of the auditor to use it is the principal reason why a case takes longer with one auditor than another. It is a definite ability. It is playing the game mentioned earlier with cleverness. Where is the preclear stuck and with what command? Why has the pre-clear suddenly stopped cooperating?

  Where is the emotional charge which is holding up the case? With the repeater technique the auditor can resolve all these problems and a clever auditor resolves them much faster than an unclever one.

  How does one think like an engram? Ronald Ross, discovering that insects carried germs, considered it necessary to think like a mosquito. Here is a similar menace, the engram.

  One has to learn to think, for therapy purposes, like an engram.

  The auditor could not and does not have to be able to look into a patient’s eyes and guess why the patient won’t eat anything but cauliflower on Wednesdays. That is an aberration and the auditor does not have to guess at either aberrations or ps
ycho-somatic illness sources; they all come out in time and he will learn much about them as he goes. But the auditor must be able to keep his patient straightened out on the track, moving earlier into the basic area, moving upwards from there for a reduction. The current answer to this is the repeater technique.

  Understand that a whole new art of practice, or many arts of practice, could be evolved for dianetics: one would be unhappy with his fellow man if such evolution and betterment did not take place. Just now the best that has come forward -- and the criterion of best is that it works uniformly in all cases -- is the repeater technique. The auditor must be able to use it if he expects anything like results from a case at this time. When the auditor -- or some auditor -- has run a few cases and knows the nature of this beast, the engram, he may -- and better had --

  come forward with improved techniques of his own. The real drawback which repeater technique has is that it requires the auditor to be clever.

  Being clever does not mean talking a lot. In dianetics, when one is auditing, that is being very unclever. Indeed auditors, when they begin to work cases, almost invariably so love the sound of their own voices and the feel of their skill that the poor pre-clear hardly gets a chance to get a word in reactive-wise -- and it is the pre-clear who is to be cleared, who has the only accurate information, who can make the only evaluations.

  Being clever in the sense of the repeater technique is being able to pick out, from the subject’s conversation or action, just what the engrams contain which will prevent his reaching them, progressing through them and so forth. The repeater technique is addressed only to action, not to aberration.

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  Here is a case, for instance, which was so “sealed-in” that thirty hours of almost continual repeater technique were necessary to break the walls between the analytical mind and the engrams. It is important to know that an engram would not be an engram if the pre-clear could contact it easily. Any engram which can be easily contacted and has no emotional charge is about as aberrative as a glass of soda water.