Each individual is representative of cause on all eight dynamics. Whether there is a common source of all life, with man a mere representative of that common cause, with all its characteristics, or whether an individual appears from an independent source is beside the point. Each individual is the potential of causation in any field of action anywhere — self, children, groups, mankind, the physical universe, all life and even the static self. Man is cause. When he is unable to be cause on any dynamic, he has failed.

Cause and effect necessarily inter-operate as a person experiences life. In order to live a man must have motion; hence he is forced to be effect at times as well as cause. For a certain length of time he can be cause only, without action, but cause without action is above 20.0 on the tone scale and is potential cause. A man can potentially pick up an ash tray. He postulated, “At this moment I am the cause of movement of this ash tray.” Then he moves it; but he had to come down the tone scale into an optimum range of being in order to move the object.

When one decides to eat one becomes cause; the moment one eats he then becomes effect. A person is cause, then, before he becomes effect; becoming effect, it is not difficult to continue so until he becomes cause again. A young man may suddenly decide that he is tired of his daily routine, quit his job, buy a motorcycle and ride to Puget Sound. He became cause again, for a while perhaps, by deserting everything which was making him an effect. But to a large degree he deserted himself on the First Dynamic by so doing, almost as if he were dead. He began a new existence, and a new self. In such a manner does an individual become a chain of effects. When he achieves the utmost in effect, the individual is dead. Full effect is MEST — a dead body. Life, then, is an interplay of cause and effect.

Cause always precedes effect. The Prime Cause or thought of each individual was “To be,” the decision to move from a state of not-beingness to a state of beingness; it was moving from Faith, the potentially causative life static, into active existence. Once undertaken, the decision “To be” enters into the sphere of motion or activity in life and continues thereon with consistency. The only thing that can happen after “To be” is modification. Upon the first decision, “I am now going to be,” an individual starts handling motion; and as long as he handles motion, he is. And even when motion is handling him, he still is!

Each human being began with the Prime Postulate “To be” as he emerged from cause into the state of being. All decisions thereafter are but modifications of “To be” or “Not to be.” As long as an individual answers positively, as long as he makes clean-cut decisions “To be” or clean-cut decisions “Not to be” on any subject, he remains sane regardless of external threats. But between the two confusion results. “No” is a state of not-beingness; “Yes” a state of beingness. The in-between state is “Maybe” and leads to insanity.

Adults usually force children into “Maybe” roles sooner or later. Innately, a child “knows” his prime postulate “To be” or “To cause.” Meeting force and opposition, he enters a ‘Maybe” existence, no longer quite the self-determined individual he started out to be.

Oddly enough, at the time the individual made the original decision “To be,” he was in a state of “Knowing.” He knew everything there was to know. He knew, yet pretended he did not know, since that is the way to achieve action and progress. Such pretense provides the individual with counter-effort to overcome. Simply postulating that there is something outside himself which he does not control, of which he is not cause, produces motion. Thus, man, to experience, chooses randomity.

Man creates artificial mechanisms for developing such randomity. Government is divided into two opposed groups, the Democrats and the Republicans, for such a useful pretense. A university sets the “pinks” against the “yellows” so the school can fight itself and get action.

Knowledge is as a circle: At one point everything is known; at an adjacent point nothing is known. Illustrating this somewhat, the Egyptians had a meaningful character that is still carried forward on tarot cards. This person is pictured as proceeding down a road, blindfolded, with an alligator snapping at his heels. He knows everything, but uses none of his knowledge. There is a difference in having Faith and applying Faith, in having Knowledge and using Knowledge. With knowing there is potential action; hence people scatter throughout the world, learning, pretending all manner of things in a battle for existence.

Man is innately trying to maintain himself as cause on eight dynamics and trying not to be effect on any, because the state of not-beingness is the state of being affected by an exterior cause, and the state of beingness is the state of cause. Even at 1.1 an individual is still cause; he is less cause than he is effect but he is still trying. At 1.5 an individual is more overtly cause, demonstrating by destruction — it is easy to “cause” destruction but it takes great skill to construct. The highest point of the one scale is “I am-I know.” The lowest point is “I am not — I do not know.” As an individual descends the tone scale he does not cease to be cause until he is dead; then, evidently, he becomes the cause of a new self.

A person must want to be aberrated before he becomes aberrated. One has to have the desire to be effect in the areas where he is aberrated or on the subject of his aberration before he can suffer entheta to enter on that channel.

Freud was nearly right in his libido theory. An individual usually wants to be the most effect along the Second Dynamic. Along the Second Dynamic it is often the case that an individual does not desire to be cause—children are troublesome to raise, difficult to bear, and are usually frowned upon by society if born out of wedlock. On the subject of love people usually want to be effect; failing in this they easily accept negative effects.

Similarly, one may choose to sit in a theater and be affected, or desire to experience through art and music. When one fails in some way or other in experiencing the wanted effect, he becomes the effect of effect, rather than the cause of effect. He desires to receive sensations from life and fails to bring his desire into fruition.

There is an interplay on the cause and effect level between the human mind and the human body. The human mind is cause and the human body is effect, especially noticeable with mystics who make the body an effect through negation. Bodily activity is associated with ability to be cause. During the bombing of London there were few, if any, individuals who went psychotic. The body during times of stress such as the bombing of London is so busy affecting, being cause of rescue and reconstruction, so busy keeping the body alive, that the mind stays sane. Action, in other words, is causative.

In the fields of theta and MEST there are certain causes which are looked upon as natural laws or parts of a system. Operating within a group consistently following within these laws, the individual survives well; but trying to operate within a group which is unobservant of these laws, the individual is made an effect.

During the war, one man-of-war was used as a laboratory for learning how groups of men operate under stress, and whether the old naval code of the flog and brig are necessary for handling men. When one hundred and ten men were challenged with the idea that they could survive the war if each and every one of them took full responsibility for the ship, one hundred ten men arose to the challenge. Order came upon the ship. Seamen Second Class whipped their deck into perfect cleanliness to enable them to point out grease spots in the engine room. A court of justice was organized on the men’s own volition, and no further justice was needed from the captain. They invented and imposed regulations resulting in satisfactory discipline. Basic to such unqualified success was the theory that every individual is cause on all dynamics, and when he is no longer able to be cause, he fails. Individuals work better together when each one knows he is cause and is permitted to operate as such. They cease bickering and work out a smooth operation when each functions as “I am. “ They forget the interplay of wishing onto one another the less tasteful tasks which are necessary in any well-running organization.

Through the pattern of social training human beings have been taught that in order to get compliance and cooperation from another individual that individual must be threatened with starvation, loss of security, cuts in pay and other scarcities. But individuation gives power. When one is worrying about his own power, he is a sick man. When he tries to rule for the sake of ruling, he is afraid to be cause. He so distrusts others around him that he cannot feel safe unless he has complete control over them. Exemplary of these were Hitler, Napoleon and Alexander the Great.

These points are all very pertinent to dianetic processing.

Those undergoing processing have been raised in an atmosphere dominated by one individual around whom others were an effect. The auditor must discover whether his preclear is still trying to be cause, or if he has resigned himself to being effect.

A chief impediment against progress stems from a refusal by an individual to take full responsibility for his theta facsimiles. He tries to think away an unpleasant memory, blames it, plays volley ball with it, so to speak. For every ache and pain there is a memory for which a person will not take responsibility. Electing something outside his sphere of control as cause for that memory, he loses its control. Thousands of persons wear glasses because of a theta facsimile for which they refuse to take responsibility; other thousands suffer daily with headaches. And each facsimile becomes more painful or more troublesome as long as the individual allows it to control.

When one individual assigns cause to another entity, he delivers power to that entity. This assignment may be called blame, the arbitrary election of cause. Blaming something else makes that something else cause; and as that cause takes on power, the individual in the same act loses control and becomes effect. Assigning an enemy as cause, then, is a most efficacious method of making him powerful and self weak. When one ceases to handle a theta facsimile, it begins to handle him. When one settles down to using one’s own memory and assuming responsibility for it, its ability to harm disappears. Processing is slanted toward reconditioning the ability of the individual himself to handle his own memory package.

Perhaps the most obvious symptom of the preclear who is low on the tone scale is failure to take responsibility. Not only is he anxious to avoid responsibility, but he assigns cause to various things by blaming others as well as his environment. Efforts towards social approval may lead him to place blame for his failings on others. Bill Jones desires to be “in the groove,” in complete ARC with everybody and everything

in his environment. Everyone approves of Bill, but even so, he develops psychosomatic illnesses. He is trying so desperately to be approved by everyone that there is really no Bill left. He resigns all his independence and in short, himself. Life is restored for Bill by giving him back responsibility for his memories.

A person who constantly reiterates, “It’s my fault; I am to blame,” is sidestepping cause as much as is the individual who places blame on other sources. His pattern of thinking moves similar to this: “I’m sorry that I caused it; I’m sorry that I am cause; I’m sorry I’m alive; I regret being an active causative force.” When he regrets being cause, he is making a declaration that he is not cause. Postulating that he is not cause, he must then find something to blame. This is the mechanism of rationalization. Any and all rationalization becomes assignment of cause.

A man is late for work: Full of regret, he walks into the office, blaming others— “The car broke down. The motor wouldn’t start. My wife didn’t get me up in time, anyway.” Or he may blame self: “It’s all my fault. I never get around in time for anything. I can’t seem to do anything right.” Either way, he is failing to be cause. Contrast the difference in the person willing to accept full responsibility for his tardiness. Entering the office buoyantly and seeing questioning eyes, some such comment as “Well, I’m late” suffices; and he plunges into work without negating to the bottom of the tone scale. This man controls environment and his own theta facsimiles.

Just as a preclear must be processed up to self-determinism, so must he be processed into full responsibility for everything that goes on in the universe. Somewhere en route he may be expected to come into a static state on a high level where he elects to be cause of everything. From there he comes down into action. A little journey up through static and down again, and the individual will go out and elect randomity in order to stay in motion.

The auditor should try to rehabilitate an individual to be cause on all dynamics. One approach is to scan the times he was willing or unwilling to be cause: What has the preclear been willing to cause? Did he carry it out? Who or what made him fail? When did he want to be cause and become effect? What in his past did he cause that he did not desire to cause? Scan this willingness and unwillingness to be cause on all the dynamics. Make a list of all the things he ever desired to be but which somebody else postulated he could not be. Guilt, grief and sympathy will appear.

Then scan willing and unwilling with effect: When was the person willing to be effect? Just before the point at which an individual was willing to be effect, there is usually a failure on the part of that person. Question the preclear: “Of what are you unwilling to be the effect? What kind of effect are you unwilling to be? What kind of effect are you willing to be?”

Postulates lie at the root of cause and effect. Of primary importance is the individual’s desire to be affected by life. At some time he decided to be affected by his environment since he was not getting fun out of being cause. He wanted life to push him around awhile. He got his wish; life affected him. Those postulates should be found.

There were times, too, when each individual knew full well that he was posing pretenses in order to achieve action. Pick up these postulates while processing and the preclear rises in tone. Especially pick up the moment when he no longer considered them to be pretenses. At that point life became serious.

Nearly everyone has had to convince somebody that they were valuable to thegroup.

Many individuals who were having fun in their activities have had to convincesomebody else that they were valuable to the group. The group has long felt that people making a contribution should be solemn-faced, arduous and hard-working. When someone accuses, “That isn’t really serious business. You should buckle down to your schoolbooks,” a child has to invent excuses as, “Oh, I am doing this to learn all about machinery,” even though he may only have been taking to pieces an old alarm clock. There is an occasional husband who is forced to convince his wife each evening that he put in a slavish day at work, when actually he enjoys the stories, the jokes on the foreman and the daily routine. Later he wonders why the work becomes so serious and such a drudgery. When one pretends about this business of living, he has to match up to his pretense.

When life becomes serious, a man becomes less cause and greater effect. If life gets really serious, his value drops to practically zero. Driving a car can become such serious business that one can wreck the car. Running a business can become so serious as to make it fail. There is a direct connection between insanity and seriousness:

What is the emotion of thinking something is serious? Scan it. Scan all the seriousness off the case. It is only when an individual progresses in life to a point where much seriousness is attached to things that he begins to have a hard time. The ancient Italian really knew what he was about when he considered that the only psychotherapy was laughter.

What is the preclear trying to hide from others? Hiding things makes for occlusion, often to the extent that the preclear hides them from himself. Occasionally the auditor will find the preclear who has developed an unenviable talent for remembering things that are not so, and has no talent at all for remembering things that are fact. If one starts lying about something it is necessary to keep those lies in mind. It’s death to forget what was told as a lie. One must concentrate so hard on what needs remembering that he often forgets the truth; this makes the wide-open case. Hiding can easily reach the point of substitution. It can grow to the place that the individual will not permit himself to have the right facsimile, but gets one either similar or one opposite to that one which should be in evidence. He desires pleasure, he gets pain. He wants laughter, he finds tears. Discover what the preclear is trying to hide from others and his decisions to hide it. What did he unwillingly cause that he is trying to hide?

Hiding a thing produces power. Because a thing is hidden and cannot be faced, it looks dangerous. Anything in a society that is surrounded by taboos, that is forbidden, will become aberrated in that society. It is thus possible to develop an entire therapy by addressing only one-half of the Second Dynamic.

Times of consistent and inconsistent action need review. When were the times when of the preclear’s own free will he decided an action and was forced to carry it out? Every time he changed his mind but was held to his original intent nevertheless, he became less able to handle his own postulates. When were the times when he was forced to become a person of his word?

A boy says, upon being presented with a new bicycle, that he will put it away every night. It’s a happy idea, all his own, to keep the bicycle from getting rusty. By the second week and a few mud puddles later he forgets all about the happy idea. Papa reminds him: “But you said.... You want to keep your word, don’t you? You want to grow up to be a good business man....” The scene ends with a sound spanking and the boy putting away his bicycle every night because he said he would. Agreement with environment forces consistency.

Sympathy on a case can bog it down considerably. Times when one gave or received sympathy need to be run until the preclear arrives at a point where he regains a power of choice in giving sympathy. Running out sympathy, the preclear can arrive at a point where the human race cannot affect him strongly, or where he can choose the effect.

Sympathy is responsible for many “epidemics.” Josie has a cold. “Poor Josie. She feels so bad.” The sympathizer’s throat begins to hurt, too. “Oh, dear! I’m coming down with it too.” He looked at Josie, sympathized with her, and elected to blame what she was blaming; then became effect of that same cause. Reading the newspapers, one says to himself, “Isn’t it terrible, how terrible it all is,” assigning cause here and there; and after finally discarding the paper feels terrible too.

A person with little recall may be having difficulty with the trust — distrust “button.” He is not trusting himself. He began life trusting people; then the teacher plays a “harmless” trick, or his parents didn’t come through with their bargain to supply him with a Hopalong Cassidy gun belt. He began to distrust along Dynamic Four. Mistrusting along one dynamic, he tends to become suspicious of all others. Processing should include much time spent scanning the trust — distrust chain.

On a broad scale, go over all the dynamics with the preclear for blame and regret. What are the times he accepted blame or blamed others? What does he blame? Who does he blame? Scan regret throughout the entire life-span of the individual. These two buttons are of extreme importance and should be given optimum time and attention.

It is evident that the goal of full responsibility is not attained by simply making new postulates. It is attained by discovering and reducing the preclear’s assignments of cause, by acceptance of his own facsimiles and finding when he pulled them into use, by scanning mis-emotion as regret, blame, and sympathy.

Does the preclear now accept the responsibility for having been cause along each part of every dynamic? He may recognize that he has never been cause of a group, but always an effect. He might realize that he had never begun a conversation, suggested a game or served as chairman. One very common computation here is, “Oh, I couldn’t do that! I’d be blamed for anything that went wrong.” Anything for which the individual feels any mis-emotion — antagonism, anger, fear, grief, apathy — is something for which he has not accepted responsibility; and there is mis-emotion only when an individual refuses to accept responsibility in that sphere of action. He can control anything for which he has accepted the full responsibility. He is unable to control that for which he has not accepted responsibility.

To be cause takes courage. A man has to be able to take all the consequences up to death. To be willing to be the cause means to be willing to be fully responsible for what people say. Is the preclear willing to be fully responsible for what people say of him or to him? Is he willing to take responsibility for war between the United States and a foreign power?

Understanding the laws of cause and effect gives an auditor a much broader perspective over the field of auditing. There is a point between cause and effect where one can produce maximum action; one can go far up the tone scale and come down again to motion. It’s fun as long as one remembers that it is pretense in order to get action. Only when one has an optimum consideration of cause and effect can one enter into the pretense called the business of living and experience it joyfully.