Scientology processing is quite different in nature from that of Dianetics, although the goals are exactly the same; the principal difference is that the goal of Dianetics, called the "clear" in 1950, is now seen to be far from the true state of clear, as was discussed in an earlier chapter. Dr. Hubbard has said that Dianetics can produce the same high-level result as Scientology, but in Dianetics the road to clear might take seventy-five years. There are now clears in Scientology who were under processing for less than four months.
Scientology processing does not spend time in the locating and running of individual engrams or painful emotions, but takes quite a different course. The Dianetic auditor did two things: he listened and he made computations. The Scientology auditor adds one more activity, while retaining the first two: he commands. He commands the preclear to go through certain exercises and to think in certain ways, and as a consequence the
135
preclear will be more intelligent, happier, healthier, and more creative. And in the end, he will be a clear, all of this having been accomplished and all his engrams having been erased without the necessity for running them one by one.
Having gone through six years of the most austere disciplines, Gautama Siddartha, the Buddha, had the sudden realization that all his fasting and self-mortification had accomplished nothing in the way of advancing his spiritual progress. He bathed in a nearby river, washing away the encrusted dirt accumulated over the past six years, ate his first real food, and made his way to the spot he had chosen. There he took his seat under a Bo tree, vowing not to arise until he had attained nip Dana, or enlightenment. Throughout that night he sat in deepest meditation, and by dawn he had entered into nirvana, becoming a fully illumined soul. His was a great achievement, for he had attained a goal sought by millions but accomplished by only a few. Nirvana, so we have been told, is a shattering experience; those who pass through it are never quite the same as they were before. They are not only free of evil; they are unable to do evil. They commit no errors; their hearts are filled with love for all mankind. Certainly the Buddhas and Christs are clears without ever having run an engram. The experience of becoming illumined must, by its very nature, shake all the engrams loose.
Perhaps a clear is not exactly a Buddha, but Scientology processing deals with engrams in a way that is somewhat similar to that which occurs in nirvana; that
136
is, they are shaken loose and washed away without having been directly and individually contacted.
When the first furor of Dianetics was at its peak, people began processing each other even before they had finished reading the book. Hubbard had said that they could audit, but he had stipulated that they should read the book through and then go back and read it again in order to gain a thorough understanding of it. This stipulation was honored more in the breach than in the observance, and there were stories of homemade auditors processing a friend or relative with the book open on their laps. Strangely enough, it seemed to work pretty well on the whole. The failures did no permanent harm to the preclears in the way that an amateur psychologist might harm anyone foolish enough to submit to his attempts at hypnotizing them, thus installing additional engrams. The worst that could happen was that no progress was made. But Scientology is another matter. It is no parlor game for the amateur; only professionals need apply. This is not because of potential damage to the preclear, but because the auditor must know the techniques essential to putting the preclear through his paces.
One of the absolute prerequisites for processing is that the preclear be willing to be processed and that he be aware of the fact that he is being processed. One does not select a likely prospect and begin putting him through processing, willy-nilly. He must come to the auditing room of his own accord, seeking help. He must also recognize that the auditor is the auditor. Some-
137
times, an auditor will have to ask what might seem to be a trivial question over and over again, saying, in effect: "Look at me; who am I?" and he will have to repeat this at various times throughout the course of the early part of the processing until the preclear can correctly identify him swiftly and with ease. The problem arises, at least in part, from the preclear's lack of an identity, causing him to deny identity to others, as we have already seen.
Another prerequisite is that the auditing should be carried on in a quiet place where there will be little chance that someone might walk in and disrupt the session. The reader will recall the unfortunate instance cited earlier, in which one of my own cases was interrupted in this manner. There was an even more serious incident during the early days of the old Hubbard Dianetic Center in Los Angeles. An auditor had taken his preclear into a room for processing and was in the midst of running an engram when the door burst open. In came one of those funny men who seem to plague all serious undertakings, a fellow who had just started taking the auditor's course himself. This humorist, thinking to enliven the proceedings, shouted, "There'll be no auditing in here," and left the room, while the auditor stared at him in amazement and disbelief. Of course, he meant no harm and was only trying to be amusing, but at the wrong time and place, a common enough aberration that one can only hope was soon run out of him. However, the poor preclear did not find it amusing in the least. This phrase got mixed up with his engram, and it took hours of hard work to lift it, since his
138
reactive mind now had a fine denyer that said he was not to be audited.
To get on with the process of auditing: The two most important factors for the auditor's consideration are what are called "Game Conditions" and "No-Game Conditions." We have already spoken of games; they are the highest activity of the human being, and the phrase "any number can play," in order to be in line with the facts, would have to be changed to read "everybody must play." Yet Hubbard tells us at the outset that all games are aberrative, although some of them are fun. Rule One, insofar as the player is concerned, is to be able to create an effect upon the opponent - "We want a touchdown" - and to receive no effect from the opponent - "Block that kick." As applied to labor-management relations, a union would try to get the highest possible wage for its members while working the least number of hours. And, of course, the position of management would be just the reverse of this.
There must be something involved in a game, some object or goal that one does not have. If there were no goal, there could be no game. There will be a no-game condition unless some of the dynamics are omitted. A chess player operates on the first dynamic, omitting all the others. A football player operates only on the first and third dynamics. The famed Dr. Dooley seems to have worked on all of the first four dynamics, and St. Francis of Assisi on the first five. A Christ or a Buddha will operate on all eight dynamics and will thus have transcended all games. The fewer dynamics excluded, the higher the tone of the game will be.
139
We have seen that the component parts of a game are freedom, barriers, and purposes. If the game is played in complete freedom, that is, without rules, it will not be played for long, since it will become totally confused and cannot even have a goal. If the game is played under a totality of barriers, that is, under an infinitude of rules governing every action of every player, there will not be sufficient freedom in which to play. If the game is played without a purpose, if State has no thought of trying to beat Tech and vice versa, there can be no game.
It is better to participate in a game, no matter which, than to be in a no-game condition. People instinctively understand this, and all but the most apathetic engage in games. If there are no socially acceptable games available, they will play socially unacceptable games. If a man is not willing or is unable to play the game of free enterprise, he will play that of socialism. If he is unwilling or unable to play the game of law and order, he will play the game called "Rob the Bank." If he is unwilling or unable to play the game of human society, he will play the game of "Drop-out," "Acid-head," or "Psycho-somatics."
A person will choose the game in which he is going to play according to his judgment of the probability of his receiving effects versus the probability of his being able to deliver effects. One may choose not to play football, believing that his chances of becoming an All-American are less than those of his receiving an injury. He may then turn to golf or Parcheesi.
An important game condition is attention. One can-
140
not play a game without giving it his attention. We have here a two-edged sword: if someone does not pay attention, he cannot play the game well; and if he plays no game at all, he will lapse into a state of inattention, leading to apathy. Attention consists of a combination of knowing and not-knowing: knowing the present and not-knowing the past or the future. Not-knowing the past means not having one's mind filled with all sorts of memories, none of which will be of any help in paying attention to the game that is being played right now in present time. Not-knowing the future means not speculating or trying to predict what is going to happen, which will again take his attention away from the game at hand. It is also important to not-know the complete intention of one's adversary. If a bridge player could see the cards in both of his opponents' hands, he would have a victory in a non-game.
Since nearly all processing is directed toward game conditions, and almost none toward no-game conditions, it is important that the auditor be able to differentiate between them, since to confuse the two might lead to a badly confused case. By running game conditions only, the auditor will run out the aberrations that have resulted from past games, leaving the preclear with a renewed ability to play games.
The first step in processing is to locate the preclear, as has already been mentioned. He must be aware of where he is. He must be aware of the fact that the person with him is the auditor and that he himself is a preclear. This may seem like a trifling matter, but many people go through life only dimly aware of their own
141
existence and that of others. There was a successful Hindu guru (teacher) who led his disciples to liberation through one practice alone, having them ask themselves repeatedly, "Who am I?"
The importance of establishing this self-identification at the beginning of processing is brought about by the problem of valences. A preclear can be in any of four valences: his own, an exchanged valence, an attention valence, and a synthetic valence. In the first of these, he is operating as himself, a prerequisite for good processing. In an exchanged valence, he has assumed the identity of someone else, usually one who was victorious in family contests, although this is not always the case. An instance of this would be that of a daughter assuming the identity of her father to some degree. In such an event, the auditor will run out the father. In an attention valence, he has not received attention from someone else and assumes the identity of a third person who did receive that attention. An example would be a son who received little attention from his father, although his mother received a great deal. He assumes the identity of his mother, and the auditor will run out Father even though the valence is that of Mother. In the synthetic valence, the person assumes the identity he believes to be that of someone about whom he has been told. If a daughter is told by her mother that her paternal grandmother had certain characteristics and that she is just like her grandmother, she will be pushed into t Grandmother's valence. However, the auditor will run out Mother, even though the valence is that of Grandmother.
142
Once the valences are sorted out and all but the first, or self, valence are disposed of, the processing ceases to bear much resemblance to what we have learned about Dianetics. Scientology processing is not in the least introspective. The first aim of the auditor is to assume control of the preclear, to the end that the preclear regain control of himself. This may sound a bit paradoxical, since we tend to think that the best way for one to gain control of himself is to become less controlled by others. This may well be true in theory; it certainly sounds like something most wise and profound. But just how does one go about the task of gaining such control if he has lacked it for the better part of his life? The control of the auditor is, in the first place, assumed with the full permission of the preclear, and in the second place, it is not a tyrannical control. There is no Svengali-Trilby relationship here.
The auditor will probably begin by having the preclear control some object. As we have seen, control consists of the ability to start, change, and stop, so he will be asked to start, change, and stop the motion of the object, perhaps something even as small as a pencil pushed around on a table top at the command, and only upon the command, of the auditor. Once this has been mastered, and in some cases it may take several hours to accomplish its mastery, the preclear is graduated to doing the same thing with his own body, the auditor asking him to walk about the room, obeying commands to start, change, and stop. These commands must be specific, and a new command should not be given until the previous one has been obeyed. He is to be run on
143
this until he can do it with ease, and only then will the auditor be in full command of the case.
The auditor should acknowledge all compliance with his orders by saying "good," or some similar word. He must never lose patience with the preclear who has not yet mastered what may seem to be a simple task. He must acknowledge anything the preclear may say in such a way that the preclear will know he has been heard, lest communication break down; but at the same time, the auditor should not let the preclear ramble on and on, since this uses up valuable time and accomplishes nothing. Sometimes a preclear will come up with a shocking statement, at which the auditor must show no surprise, but accept it as of no greater consequence or rarity than anything he has previously heard. In fact, by the time an auditor has been at his profession for any length of time, he will have heard everything - twice.
Processing must proceed from tasks on a lower level of difficulty to higher levels so that the preclear will never be faced with having to do something that is beyond him. But by working him at the top of whatever abilities he may possess, it will be found that his capacities grow very quickly. In this way, he will have only "wins," as Scientologists refer to successes, and no "losses." It must be noted in view of these terms, however, that processing is not a game, since there are no opponents and no purposes-counter-purposes. The auditor works with the preclear in a mutual effort to achieve certain results desired by both.
The next step is to work on the preclear's ability to
144
have. Having, as has already been said, does not mean the ability to put an object in one's pocket and take it away. It does mean that one can have anything he can see, touch, or occupy. The preclear can have the chair in which he is sitting, even though he cannot take it home with him. If he has his own business, he has (owns) the office furniture, but he cannot take it home with him every night. He has the chair because he is occupying it. He can have the picture on the wall because he sees it. There are three questions in the form of commands that are asked of the preclear in connection with having, and these are: "Look around the room and tell me what you could have." "Look around the room and tell me what you would allow to stay where it is." "Look around the room and tell me what you could discard." The auditor may say these in some other terms, but once he has uttered them, it is better for him to repeat them as he first spoke them.
The ratio in which these are used is about ten for the first, five for the second, and one for the third. This method has the greatest therapeutic value of all the processes. There should be little communication other than the necessary responses from the preclear, otherwise the effect of having will be dissipated. This is continued until the preclear can answer all three questions with equal ease, and this process should be carried on for about twenty-five hours - not, of course, at one sitting. But twenty-five hours of this will raise the tone of the preclear remarkably.
Occasionally, an auditor will come across a preclear who cannot run on having. When this occurs, the audi-
145
tor will change to the reverse of the first question: "Look around the room and tell me what you can't have." After a few hours of this, he will be able to return to the positive question with good results.
Once "havingness," as it is called in Scientology, is well-established, the preclear is ready for the next step, gaining the ability to not-know; this locates him in his proper place in time, since time is but the ever-present now, and if one is anywhere but now he is not fully aware. He must be able to know the present while not-knowing the past and future simultaneously. For this part of the processing, the auditor will take the preclear outside where there are other people, on the street or in a park. Without attracting attention, the auditor will ask the preclear to not-know something about some person he has indicated. But the preclear is not allowed to not-know something about the person that he actually does not know. If the preclear were to answer that he did not know what the person had eaten for breakfast, or what color socks he was wearing, providing these were not visible, this would not serve the purpose. He must not-know something that is quite apparent. He may also be asked to not-know something about inanimate objects. Usually, the preclear will, in time, be able to not-know so effectively that parts of objects (and even whole objects) disappear for him, and finally he will be able to make the whole universe disappear - for himself alone, of course. The reverse of this must be run as well, and the preclear will be asked to say what he would be willing for some person to
146
not-know about him. This process should also be run for twenty-five hours, and even double that amount.
The preclear may "exteriorize" during the running on not-knowing, and sometimes even on having. When this occurs, he has entered into the second state of the thetan described earlier, that of being near a body and controlling it. The auditor should take note of this but should make no comment to the preclear. If the preclear becomes alarmed, he should be calmed, for this is a common manifestation and, in fact, he will run better in this condition than if he remains where he thinks it is normal for him to be, inside his own skull.
When the preclear has mastered not-knowing, he will be able to erase the past at will. This is a far cry from trying to forget the past, which is impossible and merely suppresses the past, leaving it in a state where it is ready to leap up and cause him to become aberrant. Not-knowing does much to erase the engrams that used to have to be run out one by one.
When having and not-knowing have been gained, the next step is to process the ability of the preclear to play a game. We have already seen that the prerequisite to playing a game is control, and the read to control is by way of processing on ability to start, change, and stop. Gaining the ability to control will give the preclear the ability to play a game. When the preclear cannot seem to recover from an illness, it is because he is engaged in that particular state as a game, and he will not believe that there are better games to play. So the auditor has him invent another game, although he will not call it a
147
game but will speak in terms of inventing a similar state to the one he is in, or will have him tell lies about his state. Inventing or lying about the state diminishes or lifts the illness and increases the ability to play a game.
Problems are necessary parts of games. A problem, by definition, consists of two opposing purposes, and a game may be defined in the same terms. In the last analysis, games and problems are the same things. When a preclear has too few games to play, he will turn to his current problems and cling to them. When he does this, his skill at games will fall off, and the auditor will have to run out the present problems before proceeding. There is a special process for doing this.
The auditor discusses the present-time problem very briefly with the preclear and then has him invent a problem of equal or comparable size. Sometimes this will prove difficult for the preclear, and so he will be asked to lie about the problem he has. Since lying is the lowest form of creativity, albeit still creative, once he has done this for a while he will be able to move up to the inventing of problems. When he can invent a whole series of problems, his present-time problem will lessen in importance to the point of vanishing. This must be done whenever a present-time problem prevents the preclear from responding properly to the auditor's commands.
No one can play a game unless he is willing to lose and - one would hardly think this was difficult - unless he has willingness to win. One must be willing to be both a cause (win) and an effect (lose). The structure of failure is simply that one's purposes become inverted
148
in action. One means to hit the ball to left field and does so. This is a win. One means to hit the ball to left field, but hits it to the shortstop. This is a lose. Wins and loses are as simple to understand as that, and when one does understand them in this light, the processing of them is equally simple.
The processing consists of taking the preclear out to the street or other place where there are a number of people about and asking him to tell what might overwhelm a particular person. When he has answered this, he will be asked to tell what that same person could overwhelm. This is followed by the question on having: "See something around here that you could have." When these three questions have been asked and answered, the process is repeated, using another person as the target. The reason for asking these questions about overwhelming on the part of somebody else is that if the preclear were asked them in connection with himself, he might become really overwhelmed, and so the more impersonal approach is used. But by speaking in terms of overwhelming and being overwhelmed, the preclear arrives at a condition in which he can face both winning and losing, and he will no longer fear to play a game.
From what has been said here, it can be seen that Scientology differs in methodology from both Dianetics and most of the religious and mystical systems of the ages, since these deal with the interiors of people's minds. The injunction of all gurus and religious teachers has been: "Go within; contemplate the self within; turn the mind inward." Scientology, on the other hand,
149
directs the student outward: "Look around the room and tell me what you could have." His attention is focused on people and things outside himself. He "has" things outside himself; he "not-knows" things outside himself; and he plays games outside himself. There is only one thing that can be said in favor of a practice that violates the combined wisdom of the ages: it seems to work.
It takes a good deal of courage, and no end of audacity, to fly in the face of the Great Thinkers, the Authorities Who Know, but Hubbard has done it from the beginning of his experiments which led to Dianetics. If anyone has a claim on the title of a "Great Thinker" in the mental field, it would be that same Dr. L. Ron Hubbard. Yet he does not seem to consider himself the Final Authority on Everything. In fact, Scientology processing is, as we have said, almost the exact opposite of Dianetic processing, which concentrates its efforts on the insides of minds; in order to develop Scientology, he had to supersede the carefully-worked-out processes of his first brain child.
Dianetic auditing is now taught as a part of the training for Scientology auditors, and for a rather strange reason: Scientology is too fast a process and the end result is achieved too quickly for the auditor to learn what he needs to know about the mind during his own processing. Dianetics has the virtue, insofar as training is concerned, of being slow enough for the auditor to learn the procedures.
Dianetic auditing was the most gigantic forward step that had ever been taken in the field of mental therapy.
150
It accomplished things that the psychologists had never dared dream of except as a goal that might be reached in the dim and distant future. But Dianetics is as far behind Scientology as the best of psychology is behind Dianetics, and that is a long way indeed.
151