From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 3 - November 1991
 
On Clear Thinking
By Robert Ross, USA

I would like to thank David Mayo for throwing a great deal of light on 
the unclear subject of the nature of clear in his Essay in IVy issue 
one.

Mayo's essay opens the door for a new look at what we have been 
attempting to do by clearing people. I had assumed that everyone had 
my own goal for auditing people, viz. to bring about sane or clear 
thinking. I thought that once sane thinking was achieved with enough 
people we would have a world free of war and insanity. Why did I think 
this?

Identity Thinking

In april 1950, I read Alfred Korzybski's (AK's) book on General 
Semantics (GS) entitled Science and Sanity. This book describes how 
the use or misuse of language can affect the thinking of both speaker 
and listener. For example, AK discovered, that ordinary uncritical use 
of the verb -is- as in the statement "John -is- a good boy" has the 
potential to establish in the mind of both speaker and listener total 
equality of identity between -John- and -good boy- for the statement 
leaves out all other characteristics of John known and unknown. AK 
called this identity thinking. (Identity thinking, abbreviated A=A', 
may be defined as thinking and acting as though things or people 
similar in some respect or respects are the same in another or all 
other respects.) AK maintained that a sane world, without insanity and 
war, could be achieved by teaching people to non-identify when they 
said or read statements implying identity between different things. AK 
developed a number of mental exercises to enhance non-identity type 
thinking.

AK tried to say, it is not enough to ask whether the person one is 
listening to or reading is telling the truth, or thinks he is telling 
the truth. One must also be aware that no matter how hard one tries to 
tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it is not 
possible to do so. Something is always left out.

AK emphasized that two of the major things -left- out ordinarily are -
when- and -where-. When you talk of mother for example, do you 
distinquish always between mother (1930) and mother (1991), or between 
mother (happy) and mother (sad) or (angry).

In May 1950, one month later, I read in Astounding Science Fiction, 
since renamed Analog Science-Fact Science-Fiction, an article by L. 
Ron Hubbard, entitled Dianetics the Evolution of a Science (DEOS). In 
that magazine article, since republished as a book, LRH said, "Know 
your General Semantics? Well, same organization only we take all the 
perceptics and we show where the meaning of each perceptic originates 
and why Man can't non-identify with ease and aplomb so long as he has 
engrams." The footnote at the bottom of the page in recent editions 
leaves out LRH's acknowledgment of source other than himself.

LRH discovered that even when people think they have poor memories 
that their memory records include recordings of moments of injury, 
loss, pain and or unconsciousness and what led up to them. LRH found 
that recordings of perceptions associated with moments of pain and or 
unconsciousness are tabbed as records of things to be avoided. He 
further found that the deeper the unconsciousness the more the mind 
identifies rather than just associates sensory perceptions with pain 
and unconsciousness as things to be avoided.

This is the survival side of identity thinking. E.g. The monkey who 
identifies every sound similar to that caused by a lion, as a lion, 
and scrambles up the nearest tree, lives longer.

It was soon apparent, that running engrams often cleared up the 
identity thinking underlying a psychosis or psychosomatic illnesses, 
after which the psychosis or illness vanished. AK's non-identity 
drills were far less effective in severe cases, and even when 
effective, took much longer.

The good results of engram running and procedures to straighten out 
time and space confusions caused Korzybski's formulations and 
exercises to be lost sight of, even by people who knew about them. Ron 
implied, that if we cleared out enough engrams we would clear out all 
sources of identity thinking (aberration) and thus produce fully sane 
individuals. However, over the years it has become apparent not only 
that -clear- of this life engrams was not an end point, but that 
clearing did not necessarily produce fully sane thinking.

Allness Thinking

People are trapped today in the Cof$ despite or even because of having 
run lots of engrams, and so of having been relieved of one trouble or 
another. They have been trapped by a form of identity thinking called 
ALLNESS thinking.

ALLNESS thinking is basically either-or, black-white Aristotelean two-
valued logical thinking, rather than non-Aristotelean multi-valued 
gradient scale or shades-of-gray type thinking. If you are not totally 
for me, you are my enemy and against me. If you are friendly to one 
person I declare to be an enemy, you are my enemy. An individual can 
trap himself by thinking, "I have been relieved of a severe and 
crippling pain in the zorch through auditing as I was told would 
happen by a member of the church. Therefore, I trust the church and 
believe ALL they tell me.

Traps

Believing one untrue statement just because it is stated by a trusted 
person is enough to enslave an individual if the untrue statement is 
"Trust me, I have all the answers you need." or, "I have the road to 
total freedom and nobody else does." or, "It's dangerous out there, 
there are lots of enemies, you're safe only here."

Clear high IQ thinking is a lot easier to achieve when identity 
thinking is not held in place with pain and unconsciousness. 
Unfortunately, clear thinking does not take place automatically when 
the pain and unconciousness have been deleted. It is still necessary 
to educate the -clear-. As Ron put it, "A cleared cannibal is not 
automatically an Einstein, though he may have the potentialities to be 
an Einstein." A -clear- still needs to learn the pitfall of language 
and how to avoid them when receiving and evaluating data from others. 
We know that misunderstanding the meaning of a word, can block 
understanding until the meaning of that word is cleared up with the 
help of a dictionary. Similarly other pitfalls of language can cause 
misunderstandings that need to be cleared up.

Word Meanings

For example, A knowledge of GS led me to the discovery that there are 
words whose meaning in a passage cannot be determined by looking that 
word up in a dictionary because the meaning of such words changes with 
context. The word for example can change meaning in every sentence.

I recommend the "Nul-A" novels of A.E. Van Vogt, as a fun way to get 
an introduction to GS. "Language in Thought and Action" by S.I. 
Hauakawa is a good college level text book on GS. I myself have 
recently completed writing a series of games to introduce children to 
GS. These games can also be used by adults.

I recommend that "clears" whether keyed out or run out, study GS to 
become familiar with the pitfalls of language and then engage in a 
Pleasure Moment co-audit to review all the conscious moments of this 
lifetime. This will enable them to review and clarify many things they 
did not fully understand at the time they occurred which they have not 
already reviewed. Consciously reviewing the ordinary moments of one's 
life also enables one to modify or cancel out past decisions. This can 
clarify thinking on all dynamics. Pleasure moment processing also 
lends itself to scanning for beliefs one has accepted unquestioningly, 
from parents, books or peers.

Copyright (c) by B. Robert Ross, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED