Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

by L. Ron Hubbard

  There are several things an auditor can do. The first of them is to use his wits. The next is to indoctrinate the patient into returning. This indoctrination is quite simple. The auditor takes the patient back a few hours and has the patient tell what he sees. The sonic and visio may be occluded but the patient may have some idea of what is taking place. The auditor then takes him back a few days, then a few months and finally several years, each time getting the patient to describe his “surroundings” as best he can. The patient now has the idea of returning.

  He can travel at least along portions of his life which are not occluded by engrams.

  When the patient is returned to some early moment in his life, begin to use repeater technique on him, aiming toward obvious things such as feeling shut-offs (going over the word “feel”) or forgetter mechanisms (such as “forget”). An engram may then be contacted and reduced.

  If repeater technique still does not work and still does not get data, diagnose by his behavior in therapy and his statements what must be troubling him or occluding his recalls and again use these guesses as repeater. For instance he may have no recollection of some member of his family. Have him repeat the familiar name. Or have him repeat his own childhood nickname until an incident is contacted.

  Should this still fail, then find some light locks, incidents which contain minimal pain, and run those. Such things as falls from a tricycle, getting sent from the table, getting spanked or scolded, being kept after school and so forth will serve. After he has reduced several locks, again try to find an engram.

  The running of locks will not bring about any great recovery, and there are thousands and thousands of locks in any case, most of which will vanish without assistance from the auditor once the severe engrams are located. But locks may be used to indoctrinate the patient into returning and therapy in general and may even bring about an improved condition in him by demonstrating to him that he can face his past.

  The foremost things to do in any case at the beginning are to (1) attempt to locate and erase basic-basic, and (2) discharge painful emotion. The sooner emotion can be released, the better, and there is always emotion on a case just as there are always a plenty of prenatal incidents.

  But when a case is stuck in present time either when it is opened or during progress, it is highly charged with occluded emotion and it is obeying a restimulated engram to the effect that it must go all the way to now and stay there. The wording of this engram will generally be expressed by the patient himself in complaining of his trouble. Repeater technique is used with this clue. That failing, indoctrinate the patient by taking him back to what he can contact and when indoctrination is done, as above, start using repeater technique again.

  There is one motto which applies to all therapy, “If you keep asking for it, you’ll get it.” Any and all engrams surrender on the basis of returning the patient to the area time and again, session after session. The engram bank may be balky but enough asking will bring forth any data in it sooner or later. Just keep asking, keep the routine of therapy running. Even a 179

  “stuck in present time” case will eventually begin to return on the sole principle of repeater technique.

  There are certain things that the auditor may be doing which are wrong. He may be trying to work the case on data taken from parents or relatives, which is usually fruitless in view of the fact that it undermines the preclear’s faith in his own data (all the data will check with the relatives; just don’t worry about checking it until the case is finished). Or he may be trying to work the case in the presence of other people. Or he may be violating the auditor’s code. A list of these deterrents to progress is to be found elsewhere in this volume.

  BASIC-BASIC

  The first goal of the auditor is basic-basic and after that always the earliest moment of pain or discomfort which he can reach. He may have to go late for emotional charges and these themselves may be physically painful. Emotion may bar the patient from basic-basic. But always that first turn-off of the analyzer is important and when it is gained, subsequent engrams are much more easily reduced.

  Basic-basic is the vital target for two reasons: (1) It contains an analyzer shut-off which itself is restimulated every time a new engram is received. The common denominator of all engrams is analyzer shut-off. Turn it on the first time it was shut off and a vast improvement takes place in the case, for thereafter analyzer shut-off is not as deep. (2) An “erasure” (which is to say an apparent removal of the engram from the files of the engram bank and refiling in the standard bank as memory) of basic-basic widens the track beyond it markedly and brings many new engrams into view.

  Basic-basic is occasionally found weeks before mother’s first missed period, which would place it much earlier than any examination for pregnancy or an attempted abortion.

  Sometimes in a non-sonic case sonic is discoverable in basic-basic but far from always.

  Considerable material may be “erased” before basic-basic appears.

  Sometimes basic-basic gets “erased” without either the auditor or the pre-clear knowing that it has been reached, basic-basic being merely another engram in the basic area. Sometimes much painful emotion must be discharged in the later life areas before basic-basic discloses itself.

  Always, however, basic-basic is the target and until he has a good idea that he has reached it, the auditor, once every session, makes an effort to get it. Thereafter he tries to get the earliest moment of pain or discomfort he can reach every session. If he can reach nothing early, he seeks to discharge a late emotional engram -- when it is completely discharged,

  “reduced” or “erased” as an engram -- then he goes down into the earliest material the file clerk will give him.

  Whatever comes up, the auditor seeks to take all the charge out of it, whether that charge is pain or emotion, before he proceeds on his way to new material. This is done merely by returning the patient back over the incident many times until it no longer affects him either painfully or emotionally, or until it seems to vanish.

  THE REDUCTION AND THE ERASURE

  These two terms are highly colloquial. Serious effort has been made to deter their use and substitute for them something sonorous and wonderfully Latin, but no progress has been made to date. Auditors insist on using colloquial terms such as “AA” for attempted abortion,

  “louse up” for engrams which seriously aberrate, “aberree” for a person not released or cleared, “zombie” for an electric shock or neuro-surgical case and so forth. It is feared that a 180

  tendency exists in them to be disrespectful to the hallowed and sacred tomes of yesteryear, to the dignity of past Authorities which labeled much and did little. However this may be,

  “reduction” and “erasure” are in such common use that to change them is hardly necessary.

  To reduce means to take all the charge or pain out of an incident. This means to have the pre-clear recount the incident from beginning to end (while returned to it in reverie) over and over again, picking up all the somatics and perceptions present just as though the incident were happening at that moment. To reduce means, technically, to render free of aberrative material as far as possible to make the case progress.

  To “erase” an engram means to recount it until it has vanished entirely. There is a distinct difference between a reduction and an “erasure.” The difference depends more upon what the engram is going to do than upon what the auditor wants it to do. If the engram is early, if it has no material earlier which will suspend it, that engram will “erase.” The patient, trying to find it again for a second or sixth recounting, will suddenly find out he has no faintest idea what was in it. He may ask the auditor who, of course, will give him no information whatever. (The auditor who prompts is slowing down therapy by making himself the patient’s memory.) Going through it and trying to find it may cause the patient some amusement when he cannot. Or it may make him puzzled for here was something which had, on first contact, a painful somatic and a h
ighly aberrative content which now no longer seems to exist. That is an

  “erasure.” Technically the engram is not erased. If the auditor cares to spend some time, solely for purposes of research, he will find that engram in the standard banks now, labeled “formerly aberrative: rather amusing: information which may be useful analytically.” Such a search is not germane to therapy. If the incident had a somatic, was recounted a few times and then, when its last new material was found, vanished, it is erased so far as the engram bank is concerned.

  It will no longer be “soldered” into the motor circuits, will no longer be dramatized, it no longer blocks a dynamic and is no longer an engram but a memory.

  The “reduction” has some interesting aspects. Let us take a childhood incident (age of four, let us say) which had to do with a scalding. This is contacted while much data remains in the basic area. It has many things below it which will hold it in place. Nevertheless, it has emotional charge and therapy is slowed by that charge. The file clerk hands out the scalding.

  Now it will not erase, but it will reduce. Here is a job which will take more time than an erasure. And there may be several aspects to that job.

  The somatic is contacted, the incident is begun as close to the beginning as the auditor can get, and is then recounted. This scalding, let us say, has apathy as its emotional tone (Tone 0.5). The pre-clear slogs through it apathetically, well exteriorized, watching himself be scalded. Then suddenly, perhaps, an emotional discharge may come off, but not necessarily.

  The pre-clear returns to the beginning and recounts (re-experiences) the whole thing once more. Then again and again. Soon he begins to get angry at the people involved in the incident for being so careless or so heartless. He has come up to anger (Tone 1.5). The auditor, although the patient would like to tell how vicious his parents are or how he thinks laws ought to be passed about scalding children, patiently puts the pre-clear through the incident again.

  Now the pre-clear ceases to be angry and finds that he is bored with the material. He has risen up to boredom on the tone scale (Tone 2.5). He may protest to the auditor that this is a waste of time. The auditor puts him back through the incident again. New data may show up. The somatic may or may not be still present at this period but the emotional tone is still low. The auditor puts the pre-clear through the incident again and the pre-clear may, but not always, begin to be sarcastic or facetious. The incident is again recounted. Suddenly the pre-clear may be amused about it (but not always) and the incident, when it obviously has reached a high tone, may be left. It will probably sag in a few days, but that is a matter of no great importance for it will be erased wholly on the return from basic-basic. In any case it will never be as aberrative as it was before the reduction.

  A reduction will sometimes result in the whole engram’s apparently disappearing. But it is obvious when this will occur. Without much lifting in the tone scale, the incident, by repetition, simply goes out of sight. This is reducing to recession. In a few days that incident 181

  will be back in force again, almost as strong as ever. There is material before it and emotional charge after it which make it unwieldy.

  Several things can happen, then, to an engram in the process of work. It can reduce, which is to say, discharge emotionally and somatically and be of no great aberrative power thereafter. It can reduce to recession, which is to say it merely goes out of sight after several recountings. It can erase, which is to say, vanish and cease to be thereafter so far as the engram bank is concerned.

  A little experience will tell an auditor what engrams are going to do after he has contacted them. Erasure takes place, ordinarily, only after basic-basic has been reached or, for that matter, when the basic area is being worked. The reduction occurs with an emotional discharge. The reduction to recession happens when there is too much in the engram bank suppressing the incident.

  Every now and then even the best auditor will get hold of an engram and decide to grind it out now that it has been contacted. It is a sorry job. Perhaps it is better to grind it out than to merely restimulate it and let the patient be irritated by it for a couple of days. Perhaps not. But in any case that engram which reduces only to recession was better not contacted in the first place.

  New auditors are forever charging at birth as an obvious target. Everybody has a birth: in most patients it can be located rather easily. But it is a painful incident and until the basic area has been thoroughly worked and until late life painful emotion has been discharged and until the file clerk is ready to hand up birth, the incident is better left in place. It will usually reduce to recession and afterwards keep popping up to plague the auditor. The patient gets obscure headaches, gets sniffles, feels uncomfortable afterwards unless birth is taken on the return (from the basic area). The auditor is wasting time, of course, by trying to remove these headaches and sniffles because birth, with the whole prenatal life before it, will not properly reduce or erase but only recede. It is too often the case that birth, if prematurely contacted, will give the patient a headache and a cold. These discomforts are minor and of no great importance, but the work the auditor may have invested in working an incident which will only reduce to recession is lost work.

  True, the file clerk occasionally hands out birth: if he does, there is an emotional charge on it which will discharge and the incident will reduce properly. The auditor by all means should take it. True, a case sometimes stalls down and the auditor runs birth anyway just to see if he can speed things up. But merely going back to birth to put one’s hands on an engram because he knows it is there will bring about discomfort and lost time. Go prenatal as far as you can and see what the file clerk will hand forth. Try repeater technique in the basic area.

  You may get incidents which will erase. If there is nothing there, find out about a painful emotion engram in late life, the death of a friend, the loss of an ally, a failure of a business, something. Blow a charge from it and reduce it as an engram and then go back prenatally as early as possible and see what has turned up. If the file clerk thinks you need birth, he’ll give it out. But do not ask for birth just to have an engram to work, because it may prove to be a thoroughly uncomfortable and fruitless endeavor. Birth will come up when it will come up and the file clerk knows his business.

  Charging into any late period of “unconsciousness” such as surgical anesthetic, where physical pain is present in large quantities, can bring about this needless restimulation. You can, of course, fare better with such things in reverie than in hypnosis or narco-synthesis where such a restimulation might bring about severe results. In reverie the effect is light.

  HANDLING THE SOMATIC STRIP

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  There are two little men on each side of the brain, a set for each lobe, hanging by their heels. The outer one is the “motor strip,” the inner one, the “sensory strip.” If you wish to know more about the structure of these pairs dianetic research will have the answer in a few more years. Currently there is something known about them, a description. To an engineer who knows dianetics the current description which will be found in the library is not entirely reasonable. These are, possibly, switchboards of some sort. Readings can be taken in the vicinity of them -- just aft of the temples -- if you have a very sensitive galvanometer, a galvanometer more sensitive than any on the public market today. Those readings show emanations of a field of some sort. When we have established the precise type of energy flowing here, we can probably measure it with better precision. When we know exactly where the thinking is done in the body we will know more about these strips. All dianetic research has established to date is that, beneath a welter of labels, nothing is actually known which is worth recounting about these structures beyond the fact that they have something to do with coordination of various parts of the body. We do, however, refer to them for lack of something better, in the course of therapy. Now that we know something about function, further research certainly cannot help but yield precision answers about structure.
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  The auditor can turn somatics on and off in a patient like an engineer handles switches.

  More aptly, he can turn them on and off in the body like a conductor runs a street car along a track. Here we have the game referred to previously when we talked about the time track.

  In a patient who is working well, the “somatic strip” can be commanded to go to any part of the time track. Day by day, hour by hour, in normal life the somatic strip ranges up and down this track as engrams are restimulated. The auditor, working a patient, may find his own somatic strip obeying his own commands and some of his own somatics turning on and off, a fact which is at worst mildly uncomfortable. The whole body, the cells, whatever it is that is moving we do not really know. But we can handle it and we can assume that it at least passes through the switchboard of the little men who hang by their heels.

  “The somatic strip will now go to birth,” says the auditor.

  The patient in reverie begins to feel the pressure of contractions thrusting him down the birth canal.

  “The somatic strip will now go to the last time you injured yourself,” says the auditor.

  The pre-clear feels a mild reproduction of the pain of, perhaps, a bumped knee. If he has sonic and visio recall, he will see where he is and suddenly realize that it was in the office: he will hear the clerks and typewriters and the car noises outside.

  “The somatic strip will now go into the prenatal area,” says the auditor.

  And the patient finds himself in the area, probably floating along, not uncomfortable.