We're going to talk this morning about the Spotting Spots in Space and the Remedy of Havingness as a process.
This is a total process. It has many ramifications. It's, you might say, a family of processes.
Now, there are many such families of processes. And, actually, it belongs to the family that we would call 8-C of Opening Procedure — the Opening Procedure family. Spotting Spots and Remedying Havingness belongs to an Opening Procedure family.
It is actually a low order of Change of Space. So it belongs to another family. It belongs to a duplication family, since Change of Space is actually a dramatization of the formula of communication. That's just exactly what Change of Space is. You just dramatize the formula with the preclear exteriorized.
You have him be at one point and then be at another point, and be at the first point and be at the second point. Now, that first point is the source of something, usually, and so he, by being the cause and being the effect and finding out there is a vast distance between them, becomes rather relaxed about the whole thing.
But Spotting Spots and Remedying Havingness, could then be said to be cousins to two families: it's cousins to Change of Space and it's cousin to Opening Procedure.
Now, the reason why we relate it to Opening Procedure (that's a blood relationship) is because that is the way you're going to produce the most effect with it — as though it were Opening Procedure.
The first contest is to get the preclear to find a spot in space. That's the first contest. The preclear will go around and he will find large spots, two, three feet in diameter; he'll go around and find only spots which come out so far from the walls; he can't find a spot independent of the room itself; his spots have energy in them, they have masses, they have color, they have size. In other words, he has a lot of trouble. If he does locate a spot, it's liable to be suspended four or five feet above the floor on something that looks like a microphone stand.
It's quite fascinating, the various manifestations which occur. But all of them are completely useless. You want to get the preclear over them as fast as possible, and you get him over them simply by having him spot some more spots in space. That's all.
Space where? In the space of the room. And you have these spots in such a wise that he has to go over and put his finger on them. Now, when you have him capable of spotting two or three spots, you've generally shot his having-ness to ribbons. So you have to remedy havingness right away. If he starts to get queasy, sick, upset, disturbed in any way, remedy his havingness. There is nothing more destructive to havingness than spotting some spots in space.
You understand this is a precision proposition. You want him to spot a spot in space and then be able to spot it again. Actually, that spot is only a location; it doesn't have mass. And you want him to be able to put his finger on it and take his finger off of it, and put his other hand's finger on it and take it off, and move his body into it and move his body out of it, and so forth. This is a location.
And you get him really cognizant of the fact that this is a location, and the more certain he becomes of these locations, why, the better off he is. The next thing you know, he's able to tolerate space. And you do this, as I said, by remedying havingness.
Now, supposing you had an individual who had an enormous struggle in spotting some spots in space, and the first spots he spotted were fairly large. Well, you just kept on nagging him until he finally got actually a location in space. He started to get sort of upset, you know? Remedy of Havingness had not been done yet, and he feels rather queasy about the whole thing. And then you say, "All right. Mock up something that's acceptable to you, and pull it in."
And he says, "What mock-up?"
And you say, "Well, you know, I mean just put something out there — a dead body." "What dead body?"
"What are you looking at?" "Nothing."
"What are you actually looking at?"
An interesting contest will come in at this point — getting him to tell you what he is looking at. What he is looking at is usually blackness. And he won't tell you he's looking at blackness. This is nothing as far as he's concerned, but he's looking at blackness.
And to get him to finally tell you what he actually is looking at is your first contest. "What are you looking at?"
Well, it doesn't do you very much good, [with] an individual who can't get any facsimiles, mock-ups, anything of the sort whatsoever, to tell him to mock up something and pull it in, because he's going to have a hard time.
But supposing you could get a vague or indistinct image out there. Is that good enough? Yes, sir, that's good enough. That's good enough. Have him mock up several of them and pull them in on the body, and go on spotting spots in space.
But supposing he couldn't get any? None. Then enters upon the scene this interesting single Straightwire question: The agreement between the mest universe and the preclear gets down to a point where the preclear agrees entirely that two things cannot occupy the same space.
And after that he is not able to pull anything in, which is the biggest trap you have. Because the way a preclear makes something disappear — makes it vanish utterly — is to pull it all the way in.
And if he can't pull anything all the way in, it continues to persist. So how would you fix up a preclear — how would you fix up a being — so that he got packed in energy masses? You would fix him up and get him to agree to the fact that two things could not occupy the same space. And after that he couldn't destroy any energy mass that was around him.
Ha-ha! Machiavellian, huh?
Well, Count Alfred Korzybski devoted a book called Science and Sanity — there are some other books on this subject, too, general semantics. There's a guy by the name of Hayakawa, who writes even wilder colloquial English than I do, but whose originality is notable in its absence. And there are others who have written on this subject, but it goes back to Korzybski. And that is this: "It is utterly impossible for two things to occupy the same space. "And if this book has any message, it says "Differentiate amongst your words and statements and thoughts," and "Two things can't occupy the same space." You darn near sum-mate general semantics when you say those two things.
Now, there's a terrific amount to this, you understand. He examined the mechanics of this, but he examined them in complete agreement with the physical universe. And two things can't occupy the same space. And you'll get somebody who has studied general semantics, and you've got a picnic on your hands in the Remedy of Havingness. You won't realize it or recognize it, but you have.
Yes, sir! He can't pull anything in! Can't remedy havingness and, therefore, can't destroy energy. Why can't he? Well, two things can't occupy the same space, so if he mocked up a car out there to pull it in and remedy his own mass, so forth, he of course couldn't do this because he's already occupying the spot where the car would come into, see? So, therefore, he couldn't remedy his havingness.
The mock-up would disappear just before it got to him. And that underlying agreement, back of that, is two things cannot occupy the same space.
This is, of course, an utter falsity. This is not true. It happens to be a condition, which, when imposed, resulted in this physical universe. That law is what keeps the parts and parcels and spaces and planets of this universe apart. It is an enforced differentiation in this universe which makes space for this universe. That is the law which keeps the space stretched in this universe.
So, of course, Korzybski would get all involved with differentiation-differentiation on the basis of the mest universe holding itself apart. Well, that isn't differentiation. So as a result, why, you'll have trouble with anybody who's been in general semantics. You will notice this mock-up disappearing just before it got to him. In other words, he isn't remedying havingness.
Now, how do you know he isn't remedying havingness? Because he stays sick, of course. That's all. You got him spotting some spots in space and this didn't make him feel good; this made him feel kind of frantic and this made him feel kind of upset and this made him feel sick at his stomach. These are common manifestations. And then you said, "Well, mock up an acceptable mock-up to you."
And he says, "All right."
And you say," Well, you got a dead body there, or what? What have you got there?" And he says, "Well, I don't know. I got a wrecked car."
And you say, "Well, okay, pull that wrecked car into your body. Now pull another one into your body. Now pull another one into your body, and pull another one into your body." And you say, "How do you feel?"
"Well, I just feel just as — as frantic as I did," and so on.
He isn't pulling anything into his body. See, that's the answer. It's disappearing before it gets to him. It's dissipating. And other things are occurring there so that his havingness isn't being remedied.
By the way, if he could adequately remedy his havingness, there's a total process on this. You just simply have the fellow mock up things and pull them into his body. And the more massive the better, until you get planets and stars and black suns and all kinds of things being pulled into his body. And you'll start something called an avalanche after a while. And, boy, the planets start coming in with a roar. And it's quite an interesting phenomena. I've seen one run for three, four days. They'll blow up every facsimile that gets in their road. They'll blow up the entire energy-behavior pattern of the preclear, if you keep up remedying havingness. It's an interesting process.
No doubt about this as a process. It's a sort of a heavy-handed, clubfooted process.
If you could get him to remedy havingness, he'd straighten himself out simply by remedying havingness.
But if remedying havingness doesn't straighten him out, it is because he has agreed to this single agreement, which doesn't happen to be true, that two things cannot occupy the same space. He's agreed to that so thoroughly that he can't remedy his havingness.
The reason I'm stressing this is so that you'll remember why you ask this question, and that this is the question, and there isn't any other question. And that question is simply this: "What wouldn't you mind having occupy the same space as you're occupying?"
Well, he's got to change his mind immediately — that two things can occupy the same space — in order to fulfill this condition. And without explaining to him why he had to change his mind, you made him change his mind. Sometimes it takes them five minutes, sometimes it takes them five hours.
But the roughest case I know of at this time had to be pounded for (I was told last night) two hours before he could finally accept something in his own space — that is to say, until he could get something that he wasn't unwilling to have occupy the same space as himself.
And this question was asked this case over and over and over. Now, this case had never been able to remedy havingness, never been able to get mock-ups, never been able to do this, never been able to do that. So, well, he remedied his havingness and he got into fine fettle and feeling very good indeed. Changed his case.
Well, it sure would. If an individual had been asked to spot spots in space rather continuously and continually, that would make him sick and he'd get feeling worse and then he couldn't remedy his havingness, you see? So processing was horrible to behold.
On the mock-up on the body and the mock-up on themselves, it depends to a large degree on whether you're exercising the preclear as a body or the preclear as a thetan. That's all it depends on. If you're doing a lot of Change of Space, you remedy the havingness on the thetan, which is the pc.
You just remedy the thetan's havingness. Have him put up eight anchor points and pull them in on himself, and eight more and pull them in on himself, and eight more and pull them in on himself.
And when his body gets upset and restive, why, we simply have him pull it in on it — when the body gets upset on that.
If he really pulls it all the way in, it'll disappear. That is how you make things disappear. All space is an illusion. Therefore, if you pull in all anchor points, of course there's no space.
So what happened to the anchor points? Well, they didn't exist in the first place. So if you completely close terminals with the anchor points, they'll vanish.
And actually, recognition simply depends upon occupying the same space with. That's why Beingness Processing works.
Now let's look at this factor of recognition and knowingness, and so forth, in terms of beingness and facsimiles and so forth, and we simply get it this way: Is he willing to occupy the same space as it? And if he is, it'll blow, and if he isn't, it won't.
So we get a case who can't remedy his havingness being unable to destroy a concept, a lock, a secondary, an engram. If he can't remedy havingness, he can't occupy the same space with; if he can't occupy the same space with, he naturally conceives that it's making space, so therefore it has validity and it won't pull all the way in.
Now, this process is very elementary, but it could be hashed up most gloriously. This could be hashed up gloriously, by overrunning the preclear on spotting spots in space until he was good, groggy, upset and quite ill, and then expecting him to work in some fashion or another.
Well, you've driven him down tone scale to a point of where he could hardly hold on to anything long enough to do anything about it, you know? And having driven him down tone scale, why, you're now going to remedy his havingness and do the rest of this?
No, you do this early. You remedy his havingness long before he needs to have it remedied. You don't wait for signs. You could make them appear if you wanted to, but you just do this as a routine process. And whenever you spot a spot in space, you remedy havingness, that's all.
The process we're interested in is this one. The process we're interested in is spotting the spots in space. We're not really interested in remedying havingness, because this is only dramatizing his dependency on it. So we're just giving priority to the important thing here. And the priority is the spot in space. That's what's important; the Remedy of Havingness is incidental.
How come his havingness chews up? Ah, there must be something awfully wrong with the way this fellow is handling energy for his havingness to chew up, simply by trying to remedy it.
All right, what do we do? What do we do here, specifically? We ask him what could occupy the same space as he's occupying. If we had any doubt about this — and here's where we get the answer to your question about that — we would take up this problem before we fooled around with any spots in space. We would look at this fellow and there he is, gaunt and emaciated or bloated or something — something strange with his physiology. We would say, "Hm, this guy has a little bit of trouble with havingness."
You know, he's a banker or something. We could tell professionally: He's a commissar or a banker or a general. There's something wrong with this guy's havingness, otherwise he wouldn't be where he is. That's obvious. He has to have in some other fashion than simply having. You know, he needs a system, like becoming a general. That's a method of having, you see? You go to West Point and don't talk back, and graduate and don't talk back, and get into a War Department post and don't talk back, and coast along the line and don't talk back, and then you have to, of course, get more suppressed about how famous you've got to be. And the next thing you know, why, you will start to accumulate troops to remedy your havingness. That's right. And you got a U.S. general. Don't do anything with them, just accumulate them. You'd be amazed that that's what they do.
Now, here — it's not just a snide remark on generals or anything else. You can look at somebody and tell whether or not he's having a lot of trouble with havingness. If he's having trouble with havingness, then it might be very wise for you to just sail right in on that basis. Let's fix it up quick before we render him liable to anything. That'd be a good idea. All right.
Well, what's important about this process is spotting spots in space. What do we do with all these spots in space? We just spot them, that's what. Oh, I know, but what do you do with them after you spot them? Well, you spot them. Well, after you've spotted them, then what do you do with all these spots in space? Well, you spot some more of them, that's what you do.
Don't look for any deeper significance in the technique than that, except this: The preclear is sitting on three kingpin significances. And
(1) is that he's there but he's got to leave;
(2) is that he's there and fixed there forever, being fixed against his will; and
(3) is that it was there in that spot but now it is gone.
Three considerations, there, that are very aberrative on the track.
Well, you can run these with this process: You spot a spot in the room and have him move his body into the spot — move the spot into his body, rather, and have him stand there.
And you tell him, "Now," you say, "now get the idea that you can't remain there." "All right, find another spot." "Okay, now move out of the spot you're in and move this next spot into your body." "You got that? All right, now get the idea that you can't stay there."
You just do this in sequence: "Just get the idea of that." You know, he's in the spot, now get the idea of that.
And you are making him dramatize the basic formula of self-determinism — location of objects in space. And you make him locate objects in space one after the other, he'll get well.
Well, put this consideration on to it: that he can't stay there and have him move to the next spot. And put the consideration on to that and have him move to the next spot. You just spot the spot and have him move to it. But you give him the consideration he can't stay there.
Now we get the other one: We have him move onto a spot and then get the idea that he's fixed there and can't move. And then we have him change his mind — not just break or disobey his postulate — we have him change his mind and pick out a new spot and move into it and get the idea he's got to stay there forever.
And then have him change his mind about staying there forever, and get a new spot and move it into his body. Get the idea he's going to stay there forever.
You'd be surprised at the agony and weariness and tiredness which this one turns on.
All right. There's the next level. And the next level is, you have him spot the spot and get the idea that something very precious has just left there that he will never see again. And you have him do this, just walk around and spot these spots, and get the idea each one has just been vacated.
There is the manifestation of the fellow trying to fill in the spots with energy. There's the mechanism that he's undergoing. And it has a tendency to blow these.
Now, there are three conditions. There are probably others, but those are very, very important conditions. Why? What is the manifestation of facsimile? The manifestation of facsimile is not being able to remain in the spot, having to get out, and, cussedly, taking along a picture of it so that one can say he's still there.
That's the rationale behind the facsimile. The facsimile is the solution to the problem of not being able to stay there. That's the solution to the problem.
Now, what is this thing called unreality? Unreality is that activity the preclear has engaged upon whenever he was forced to stay in a place where he did not want to be. His answer to this was to make it all unreal, so that he wouldn't really know he was there.
He's trying to be self-determined anyhow, and the way he's being self-determined is to make it all unreal. He didn't want to be there. See that?
And now he can say, "Although I am forced to stay here in prison, stone walls do not a birdcage make," you know. "It's all unreal." That's why they put psychotics in cells.
Oh, that remark didn't quite add up to a solution? Well, I'm — that's as reasonable as anything else in psychiatry. That's a subject that has to do with nuttiness; don't expect it to be reasonable.
All right. He'll make things unreal, then, if forced to stay in the same space; he'll dim down his perception on things. That merely says he's unwilling to be there.
All right. Now what's this thing called occlusion? Occlusion comes about as a consequence of loss. Something precious has disappeared from the object, and if the preclear could still see, he'd notice it'd be gone and this would be more than he could bear. So the best thing to do is to cover it all up with blackness, and that'd be that.
That'd be a good solution, wouldn't it? Let's just hide the whole thing, let's just hide the problem, and then let's just abandon the whole idea, and then, you see, we can still pretend that it's still there.
This is the basis of "it's too good to lose," too. You know, people will get to a point of where you give them something very, very valuable, they will not wear it, use it, or anything else. They promptly hide it. Well, that's because they know, if they know anything, that they lose things like this.
I know I gave a very dear old lady — my grandmother — a present one day; she had a watch there that was a shame and very disreputable, and I gave her this watch. And she kept on wearing this old, disreputable watch, you know, that she'd been wearing, instead of this nice, new watch. And I, one day, was going around looking for something. I opened up a drawer and here, hidden at the bottom of the drawer, was this brand-new, very nice — rather indestructible, by the way — but a good watch, you see? And there it was at the bottom of the drawer. She wouldn't wear it.
And I asked her why she wasn't wearing it, and she said, "Oh, that's much too nice to use." And so I began to wonder about this a little bit, and I one day just glanced through some of her things there. And you know, she had more things that were too nice to use! You talk about the amount of abundance in commodity which was present: it was tremendous. She couldn't use it though; it was all too nice.
Well, people do this on another wise. When they've lost something they turn everything black. They just hide it. See, they hide the fact that they've lost it.
Also, this is no-responsibility and other factors, and so on. Occlusion adds up to too many considerations. Actually, the basic occlusion is mystery. Unpredictability: "It's gone and I didn't predict it would 'went.'" And so it's all black.
Well, you're making the preclear predict that something is going to go and then disappear. So there's these methods of handling spots in space, and these are the main considerations.
Now, don't for a moment believe, now, that there are eighty-five other considerations that can be added into that type of processing. There aren't. There aren't. The basic Prelogic on which this is based is a very precise thing. And it says theta locates things in time and space, and creates time and space and things to locate in them. That's a Prelogic; that's what theta does. Self-determinism is one's ability to locate things in time and space.
And so this directly processes self-determinism. So it doesn't go out in all directions. It's right there, it's on those three considerations: The consideration of loss, consideration of "I got to stay here, so I'll make it all unreal," and the consideration of "Well, I can't have that place anymore, so I'll carry a picture of it."
Most of your preclears that you'll get a hold of, whether they know it or not, are walking around with a childhood home over their heads. You know? They can't have that spot anymore — the orientation place — so they think to see at all, they better carry it around with them.
Now, Spotting Spots and Remedy of Havingness, between the two of them, the more important is spotting the spot. And the consequence of spotting the spot is having to remedy the havingness.
But why does he have to remedy havingness? Well, that's because he can't create energy. There are obviously lots of methods — one way or another — which would get somebody out of creating energy. But just had one here: After something had been discovered which the preclear was perfectly willing to have occupy his same space, the next thought was, "Well, let's see now, if there's that, that's energy. I think I'll make up a machine of some kind or another to remedy my havingness," and mocked up a generator. And then it went on to a power station and then on to suns.
In other words, the preclear went right on and remedied all of his consideration that he was dependent on anything else of any kind whatsoever for energy, and he started producing it himself. So that is the end product of Remedy of Havingness.
Well, that was a very good procedure, which is you just change the consideration on it all the way on up. I mean, it's obviously a terrific procedure.
You don't go on remedying havingness forever. Why don't you remedy the condition that makes you remedy havingness? Get them out of the idea entirely — there's an indicated process, then.
Well, this'll turn on mock-ups and everything else: "What wouldn't you mind occupying the same space?"
There are a lot of tricky processes that we could go into. There's no necessity to do so whatsoever.
Now you've got an idea of what this type of process is, Spotting Spots and Remedying Havingness?
Okay.