It probably has not occurred to the field at large what I am trying to do in relationship to theta clearing and aberration. Theta clearing, even to auditors who have taken the course, continues to be something very special, perhaps allied with religion, perhaps a mystic practice, and possibly just another form of Christian Science or plain Hubbardian nonsense.
In order to understand what has taken place in theta clearing, an auditor would have to have fairly good command of Book I. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, published about May 9th, 1950, described the state of affairs wherein the analytical mind was perfectly sane but, because it was in proximity to the reactive mind, could not behave uniformly or predictably and could not reach optimum solutions because of the stimulus-response mechanisms of the reactive mind which were built in during moments of pain and unconsciousness. Therapies were designed and set forth in that book to reduce the effectiveness of the reactive mind and to free the analytical mind in such a way as to permit it to compute more reliably and actively and to permit Man to reach something like his possible potential as a man.
Science of Survival, following that, still addressed the problem of the reduction of the reactive mind. The first editions of Self Analysis, The Handbook for Preclears and Advanced Procedure and Axioms all have the same goal: the reduction of the reactive mind. It was realized that the self-determinism of the individual could only be trusted at such times as it was not being influenced by unconscious and hidden influences which would cause it to act in an aberrated fashion.
Early in 1952—January 1st, to be exact — I was already well launched on another idea: Instead of attempting the resolution of this problem in terms of the reduction of the reactive mind, would it not be possible to put the analytical mind in such a state of alertness as to make it capable of handling and nullifying the reactive mind? There ensued a considerable investigation of the reactive mind to find out what had to be handled. Overt acts and motivators, DEDs and DEDEXes, and the bewildering confusion of the whole-track aspect and borrowed facsimiles brought into view the fact that the reactive mind was not something that was going to be handled very easily. Several key engrams were picked out which, when reduced, made a remarkable change in the behavior and attitudes of an individual. Fac One was one of these; others on the genetic entity line were found and stressed.
And then it was discovered that there were two reactive minds. One reactive mind was that which belonged to the genetic entity, the other reactive mind was that which the thetan himself, the preclear himself, took along with him on the whole track. These two reactive minds, combining in influence, posed a problem which could not be easily handled in terms of engrams and demonstrated adequately why homo sapiens could never get above 4.0, the goal of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The goal of that first book was realized — it was realized over and over on many people; but others found fault with the results and there were some cases which could not be solved by routine auditing and which required very expert skill indeed. As always, as in any wildcat therapy which enters in from unreliable quarters, what we called the wideopen case was easily resolved. The wide-open case continues to be easily resolved, but below this level, in terms of recall, the problem is quite difficult. The training and experience an auditor requires to achieve results on the more difficult cases was
Copyright (©) 1953 by L. Ron Hubbard. All Rights Reserved.
beyond the scope of the Foundations to provide. I myself, no matter what results I could get with cases, could not be expected to audit two billion human beings, and it was obviously necessary that if we were going to have a sane world, we would have to audit two billion human beings. What, then, was the answer to this conundrum?
The formulations of Scientology are based on no other concepts or precepts than those of Dianetics, except that those of Dianetics are addressed to the treatment of man as an individual by a new form of psychotherapy in the attainment of a goal of a better man. These are not the goals of Scientology. Scientology attempts to achieve the highest level of knowingness and beingness possible, whether the person remains a man or becomes something else. Scientology is a popularized word which means exactly the same thing as epistemology — which word, I think you will agree, is not acceptable to the general public. What does Scientology do? It handles the problem of the reactive mind by subtracting the analytical mind from the proximity to the reactive mind or minds, puts the analytical mind into the kind of thinkingness and beingness it should attain and then permits it again to associate with the reactive minds. We have turned the problem exactly around and answered it exactly on a 180° vector. Instead of treating the reactive mind, I have found it possible to separate the analytical mind— which we call the thetan — from the body and, while it is separated, treat it until it is capable of handling with great ease any quantity of aberration in the reactive mind. This is the process on which we are working.
Would you please tell me how this process differs actually from the goals we first embraced? It differs only in trying to attain a higher level of beingness than was ever envisioned in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and it differs in bringing the analytical mind up to the point of handling the reactive mind instead of reducing the reactive mind until it can be handled by the existing analytical mind. We have something now which well exceeds the definitions and activities of psychotherapies, for we are dealing solidly in the field of knowledge. It is now our purpose to put minds into a condition whereby they can know, all by themselves and without further coaching. A preclear who has been brought up to a high condition of operating thetan knows that he knows.
Our process, then, is not to teach people to know; our process is to put people into a condition wherein they can know. We do not puney data and knowledge; we puney a process which brings people up to a level where they themselves can accumulate all the data and knowledge which they desire. Scientology is the science of knowing how to know. It is almost incidental that it incorporates in its structure ways and means of achieving the goals of Dianetics. The Modern Science of Mental Health and exceeding those goals. But why the formulation of Scientology should in any way separate the loyalties or confuse those who were first interested in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is quite beyond me.
As in all fields of research and activity, the inventor is imitated by those who desire to make money from his inventions. It is an old experience in a capitalistic society that the capitalist will seek to take from the inventor his invention and then, holding that invention at a certain level of saleability, puney it. A discouragement of continued research, wherever I met it, caused me to abandon that terminal of discouragement. This naturally led to a certain amount of enturbulence, but it also led to an all-out endeavor to attain the goals which we have now attained.
Aside from telling you in a way which you can probably understand better than before what we are trying to do with Scientology, this newsletter also tells you that we have attained a process of knowing how to know, represented by a paper called The Factors and by Standard Procedure 8, which is not likely to change for a long time to come, for it rapidly produces the results which we desire.
I am not, and will never pretend to be, a philosopher. The task of a philosopher is to go off and philosophize. Philosophers normally philosophize all the years of their lives, and in the books of philosophers all the absurdities and wisdoms of men can be found. My entrance into this field of better minds was a forced one: I had a feeling
that man ought to progress. It was with astonishment that I discovered that man, for all his prate of science, psychotherapy, all his yap of mysticism and philosophy in general, did not even vaguely know how to improve himself. Those systems of improvement which were in existence were actually control operations and were harmful to the individuals who practiced them. I was an expert in hypnotism and mysticism, mostly for my own amusement and not as any preconceived plan. To these things I combined a knowledge of the material universe found in nuclear physics to bring man up to a level where he could operate as a culture instead of the pigpen type of civilization in which he laughingly believes himself to be progressing. This was done mostly by an observation of man himself in the environment rather than observation of books man has written about man. This search for the tool which could improve men’s minds so that man could improve has been and always will be a bypass, a detour, in my life. If it is called achievement, then I care nothing for it. The true achievement is in its application and its use as a tool by which the culture of man can be improved from the mere barbarism which he now enjoys where he can be lifted from a level of war and famine and pestilence, of crooked courts, of predatory governments, sanctimonious religions and raw barbarianism under a hundred thousand guises. Here on earth there is an opportunity to construct a civilization such as earth has not before enjoyed. A tool has been provided by which this can be done. The application of this tool, not its invention, is the goal. That the forging of the tool has come to a successful conclusion does not mean that the job is concluded.
It is not our purpose to be selective, competitive, credit-happy and generally foolish about organizations and personal activities in the achievement of this goal. This tool must be employed to make each and every one of us above such things. It is up to us now to do a job which man has never before been able to do.
We can process with Standard Operating Procedure 8 not only individuals but groups from five to five thousand — five million if we had the speaker systems. There is no lack of personnel to process. Man at large, however, does not know that he has a reactive mind. It is not up to us to convince him he is crazy so that we can make him sane. It is up to us to employ such salesmanship as we can to make the able far more able. We will succeed in direct ratio to the number of people we make more able.
At this writing, our organization is in a rough but workable for-. We have associates spotted out here and there across the world. At these Centers people can be trained and from these Centers the impetus can go out to stimulate man into conceiving a better beingness. I do not believe personally that a perfect organization can be brought into being, because we must perforce include in our ranks people whose motives we will not know until it is too late. Instead of trying to be selective, our Centers should put out such pressure for forward progress that these unhappy persons and connections are simply swallowed up in the general good. Even now there is competition amongst the associates, competition exists in Philadelphia; there is much snarling and snapping going on in our own ranks. I cannot guarantee you that everything is going to be perfect; all I can ask you to do is to see that the individuals most closely connected with this operation are the best-processed individuals we have. There is no excuse now not to be clear. A good thorough-going operating thetan should not take more than fifty hours of auditing. Certainly we can afford this as individuals. I have set an example in this, and am in a better state of mind and action today than I have been in any of the years in my life.
You may see me recruiting from strange sources to get a show on the road in the societies of man. You must expect in an advance to find yourself allied to auxiliary troops with whom you might not ordinarily care to associate. This does not mean that our goals are less; it means that our goals are greater than partisanship. We are not disagreeing with man and we are not trying to fight man into shape. He will not fight into shape. We want to agree with man and get man to agree with us until he is in shape.
Tapes and materials are going out from here and from Philadelphia as fast as they can be mailed. Sometimes they are scarce and a little time has to go by before they can
be manufactured, but every possible pressure to get the show up to speed is being applied.
I ask you for your loyalty and cooperation and I ask you, as well, for your occasional tolerance and patience. I am honest and I am sincere. I need your help, you need my help, but most of all man needs our help, for we are today the only team even vaguely in shape on the face of Earth capable of pulling him out of the mud and setting man on a road toward destiny.