Scientology is apt to make daring statements at just the moment when one is not quite ready for them. Such a statement is the first principle of Scientology: One may have learned that the mind is difficult, if not impossible, to understand; but it can be understood, and so can life and spirit. This sort of talk can set the Great Thinkers of the ages to whirling in their graves. The Chief Whirler would undoubtedly be Immanuel Kant, the propounder of the "Unknown and Unknowable." Hubbard would say, "It may be unknown to you at this moment, but it is far from unknowable, and this is how you go about knowing it."
The next principle is based on what Hubbard calls "The Cycle of Action," a nearly universal doctrine holding that within the timeless universe it is possible to set up a period of time in which an action takes place. For instance: we are born, mature, grow old, and die; we start a certain task, carry it through, and bring it to
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completion; we see the sun rise, reach noon, descend, and set. The Hindu Trinity of Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer, preside over such a cycle, as the universe is created, endures for a time, and is then dissolved, to await the start of the next cycle.
But this Cycle of Action only seems to be the way things work. Hubbard calls it an apparency, something that appears to be so, although its actuality may be quite different or may not exist at all. We see it and we believe it to be so, although it is no more true than if we were to believe the evidence of our eyes which tells us that the sun is born at dawn, waxes, wanes, and finally dies at sunset; that it rises out of one ocean and sets in another as it travels across the obviously flat earth.
Because we all see the same actions, and because we are all in agreement as to the validity of these actions, they become true for us. Of course, only a few of us still believe that the sun goes around the earth; we have learned not to trust our senses in at least this one case. But most of us still believe in the apparency which is the Cycle of Action as it concerns the human being: he is born, matures, grows old, and dies. But must he do so; Hubbard says that the process of aging goes quickly or slowly, or not at all, to the extent that we believe in it. We may fight the Cycle of Action, but in the very act of fighting it, we agree to its validity. One does not fight something in which one does not believe. Only those who believe in Satan fight him.
The acid test Hubbard applies to the Cycle of Action is this: will believing in it, thus being bound by it, help
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in any way to make us better, physically or mentally? Since the answer to that can only be "No," the next step is to cast it aside and seek an actual Cycle of Action that will do so.
Hubbard does not have the destructive instinct of the true iconoclast. He not only sweeps up the shards of the broken icon, but he replaces it with a more realistic image. He propounded an actual Cycle of Action, the terms of which are: create, create-create-create, create-counter-create, no creation. Now that is a sort of awkward way of saying it. I would have preferred: create, continue to create, counter-create, acreate (a coined word, meaning to not create). Probably the best method of demonstrating the difference between the apparent cycle and the actual cycle is to contrast them, term for term, placing the apparency first, thus: create/ create; endure/continue to create; destroy/counter-create. As for the fourth term, the time when creation awaits the start of the next cycle, the Hindus call it the Night of Brahma, and we might then draw the contrast as: the Night of Brahma/acreate. It can be seen from the foregoing that Hubbard's concept is one of eternal creation, and that there is no destruction. Instead of destruction, he puts forth counter-creation; it is not really destruction, but a creation opposed to a creation. If someone sculpts a statue and somebody else comes along with a sledgehammer and smashes it, he has created something against the original creation.
The statue, having once been created, is yet being constantly created by those who observe it or are aware of it and agree that it is there. Then someone smashes it,
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and because we do not like this action we call it by a deliberately pejorative word, "destruction," but it is actually a counter-creation. There are two types of acreating: if the sculptor decides to give up sculpting, he will be not creating, although, of course, he will still create in everything else he does; and the other type occurs when one no longer participates in the continued creation of the statue, when, for him at least, it will cease to exist. This actually does come about in one phase of Scientology processing. We see, then, that there is only creation in the actual Cycle of Action. And when one creation is opposed by another, a chaos is created.
So much for philosophizing. Now we have a theory. But a theory that does not work out in practice is only a pretty theory; it is of no use to a science. Does this theory work? In other words, can it be used in such a way as to improve people, mentally and physically? We have seen that the old create-endure-destroy cycle does not improve anyone. It just sits there, a theory in the middle of a desert, going nowhere, accomplishing nothing. What about this new one?
Let us suppose that a man, having begun life in possession of a sound stomach, has developed an ulcer. He thinks of his stomach as having been partially destroyed by the ulcer, and he goes to a doctor in the hope that it will be cured. He is trying to create a good stomach, but something - a "something" that will emerge as we go further - has created, and is continuing to create, an ulcer. Let us make quite free with the terms "good" and "bad" here.
Originally a good stomach was created, and for some
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years the man continued creating a good stomach. Then something counter-created a bad stomach, and now the man wants to counter-create a good stomach. But this counter-creation of a good stomach erases the original creation of a good stomach, and being a counter-creation to the bad stomach, creates a chaos. The method of Scientology in such a case would be to have him create bad stomachs by a process that will be explained, thus erasing the counter-creation of a bad stomach, at which point the original creation of a good stomach will reappear. Let me assure you that there are no misprints in the above; there has been no confusion of "good" with
Lest there be some doubt on one point, Hubbard makes it clear that he is not substituting man for God in the act of creation. He is not saying that God is not the Creator of all. He is not speaking of the Supreme Being, but of the mind of man and of that creation which takes place within that mind after Whoever or Whatever created him in the first place. He seems to have followed the example of the Buddha, who wasted no time in speculation on the nature of That which transcends nature, choosing to deal with the problem having the greatest urgency for those seeking knowledge: how to know That for themselves. Is it not futile for one thinking with finite equipment along finite lines to attempt the comprehension of the Infinite? Hubbard has apparently elected to acreate (not create) a new image of That which is beyond all imagery.
Referring back to the gentleman with the stomach ulcer: in getting rid of the ulcer, it was said of Scientol-
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ogy processing that he was to create a bad stomach. In order to do this, he has to lie, which is a process of creating, although its lowest form. You will see that lying, under the direction of an auditor, is a most valuable tool in Scientology. It can do much more for a preclear at times than telling the truth. Now isn't that a shocking idea?
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