The following is a chapter from Handbook for Preclears by L. Ron Hubbard (1951). It is annotated by explanatory notes and comments in color. These notes and comments are based on Postulate Mechanics.

---

As the operating mechanism between thought and action, EMOTION should be well understood. 

Emotion = Interface between thought and motion

Emotion exists to monitor motion. Thought itself seems to have an emotional impulse which is free of physical universe waves. This is studied in various ways, but it is only important to us in the resolution of the problems of the human mind. 

Thought = Impulse to bring harmony of Oneness

Various emotions produce various actions. Anger, for instance, is the catalyst for attack. Fear is the signal to withdraw. Grief is the signal to be quiet and initiate nothing. Apathy is the signal to be dead or to feign death so that a marauder will go away. Various glandular compounds are injected into the system to produce these results. Fear and grief, for instance, have an added compound to make the flesh taste bad—for Man is but recently a food animal. 

Emotion = Predisposition for motion

There is an entire scale of emotions to produce certain motions And there is a herd reaction, as witnessed in mass hysteria, whereby emotion acts upon others mechanism developed in the control of hunting packs whereby the entire pack could feel afraid and run or feel angry and attack without any other command. This shows up additionally in any modern leadership. The leader is that one who emotionally affects others most strongly toward positive action. 

Emotion works both at individual and mass levels.

In interpersonal relations, emotion plays an enormous role. In this new science we have what is called COUNTER EMOTION. Incidents quite often will not reduce until the pre-clear is made to feel the emotion of others toward him. But quite aside from this manifestation as an ethereal something, there is the real mechanism of sympathy. One person shows grief in order to get support from the other. The other shows sympathy and gives the support. Man is so interdependent and the physical universe so occasionally rigorous that all interpersonal relations are built upon this dependency or its denial. 

Emotion communicates at a more basic level than logic.

The broad field of the dynamics indicates the generalized character of emotion. 

The test of these conclusions is their workability. You will discover in processing the enormous importance of emotion. The emotion of an individual can be frozen by some facsimile he once wanted but now does not want, and he thereafter handles motion according to that emotion. Thus a person can be chronically angry or chronically in apathy and his behavior on all dynamics is the behavior of that emotion. By knowing this and the activities of any level on a tone scale of emotion, one can predict completely the actions of any given individual or handle him with ease.

The ideal state is fully self-determined emotion. Only then can one be happy and successful.

Ideal emotion supports the impulse toward harmony.

.

The following is a chapter from Handbook for Preclears by L. Ron Hubbard (1951). It is annotated by explanatory notes and comments in color. These notes and comments are based on Postulate Mechanics.

---

It is common to think of the human mind as something which just happened in the last generation or so. The mind itself is actually as old as the organism. And according to earlier guesses and proofs established by this new science, the organism, the body, is rather old. It goes back to the first moment of Life’s appearance on Earth. 

First there was a physical universe which happened, we know not how. And then, with the cooling planets there appeared in the seas a speck of living matter. That speck became eventually the complicated but still microscopic monocell. And then, as the eons passed, it became vegetable matter. And then it became jellyfish. And then it became a mollusk and made its transition into crustacea. And then as a land animal this particular track of Life which became Man evolved into more and more complex forms, the tarsus, the sloth, the anthropoid, and finally Man. There were many intermediate steps. 

A very materialistic Man, seeing only the material universe, becomes confused and vague about all this. He tries to say that living organisms are simply so much clay, wholly a part of the material universe. He tries to say that after all it is only the “unending stream of protoplasm,” generation to generation by sex that is important. The very unthinking Man is likely to make many mistakes not only about the human mind but the human body. 

We discover now that the science of life, like physics, is a study of static’s and motion. We find that Life itself, the living part of Life, has no comparable entity in the physical universe. It isn’t just another energy or just an accident. Life is a static which yet has the power of controlling, animating, mobilizing, organizing and destroying matter, energy and space, and possibly even Time. 

Hubbard views life as a “static”, which has the ability to generate, control and direct motion. Static simply means absence of motion. Motion is a property of substance. Motion cannot exist in the absence of substance. If “static” has something to do with motion, then it must have something to do with substance too. For example, static will be “substance not in motion.” But, Hubbard postulates “static” to be devoid of substance. That reduces “static” to an abstraction.

Substance is anything that is substantial enough to be sensed. Not only matter; but thought is also a substance because it can be sensed. A postulate that is an abstraction, shall be made up of thought. Hubbard’s “Static” is not nothing; it is a thought that is not in motion. But since it has abilities, it can acquire motion. Therefore, Hubbard’s “Static” is not always a static. It undergoes motion as it exercises its abilities. 

It is true that physics does not consider “thought” to be a substance. But that does not mean that thought is not a substance. Thus, we can have a physics of thought. The subject of physics simply needs to advance.

Life is a CAUSE which acts upon the physical universe as an EFFECT. There is overwhelming evidence to support this now. In the physical universe there is no true static. Every apparent static has been discovered to contain motion. But the static of Life is evidently a true static. The basic text of axioms of this new science demonstrates this conclusively. 

There are no separate “physical” and “spiritual” universes because spirituality has to do with thought, and thought is also a substance. There is just a single UNIVERSE made up of the substance, which may be categorized into matter, energy and thought. We do not know how this universe came about, so any known CAUSE and EFFECT are part of this universe only. Hubbard’s “Static” does not lie outside of this universe. Life is very much a part of this universe. In this light, the above statements of Hubbard needs to be revised.

Life began with pure CAUSE evidently. With the first photon it engaged in handling motion. And by handling motion ever afterwards accumulated the experience and effort contained in a body. Life is a static, the physical universe is motion. The effect upon motion of CAUSE produced the combination which we see as the unity of a live organism. Thought is not motion in space and time. Thought is a static containing an image of motion. 

Thus one can say that with its first impingement upon motion, the first thought about the physical universe began. This static, without volume, wave length, space or time yet records motion and its effects in space and time. 

This is, of course, analogy. But it is a peculiar analogy in that it sweepingly resolves the problems of mind and physical structure. 

The universe does not have a known beginning; so, there is no “pure CAUSE.” Life consists of the motion of substance (matter, energy and thought). Thought is not just static. Any “handling of motion” starts with the effort of thought to bring about a state of harmony or oneness.

Hubbard’s theory starts with “Absolute Static” or “Pure CAUSE.” This may be restated as the “Harmonizing Principle of Oneness,” because that”s what is happening. The methods that resolve the problems of mind and physical structure have a better scientific explanation in terms of Oneness that motivates all existence.

A mind, then, is not a brain. A brain and the nervous system are simply conduits for physical universe vibrations. The brain and nerve trunks are much like a switchboard system. And there is a point in the system where the vibrations change into records. 

An organism is motivated by continuing, timeless, spaceless, motionless CAUSE. This cause mirrors or takes impressions of motion. These impressions we call “memories” or more accurately, facsimiles. 

A facsimile, as you know, is a simple word meaning a picture of a thing, a copy of a thing, not the thing itself. Thus, to save confusion and keep this point before us in this new science, we say that the perceptions of the body are “stored” as facsimiles.

A mind is like a computer. The gray matter of brain and the nervous system is the hardware of the mind, which is made of matter and energy. The “vibrations” are the incoming sensations, which are modulated by the software of the mind, which is made of thought. 

The software is guided by the harmonizing principle of Oneness. It converts the incoming sensations into records that are structures of thought. The rest of the organism is like the peripherals of the system.

The software naturally assimilates all incoming sensations into a harmonized whole that makes sense. The assimilated records appear as perception, and they are stored as “memories.” The assimilated records constitutes the “conscious” or “analytical” mind.

But there are incoming sensations that cannot be assimilated immediately into a harmonized whole. The unassimilated records are stored as “facsimiles” because they are exact copies of the input. The “facsimiles” do not appear as perception. They constitutes the “unconscious” or “reactive” mind.

The facsimiles cannot be recalled as memories. They must be assimilated before they can be recalled. This assimilation is facilitated in Scientology through the process of auditing (a form of meditation). Hubbard, however, does not make a clear distinction between “facsimiles” and “memories.” The following should be studied with this distinction in mind.

Sights, sounds, tastes, and all the other perceptions of the body store as facsimiles of the moment the impression was received. The actual energy of the impression is not stored. It is not stored if only because there is insufficient molecular structure in the body to store these energies as such. Physical universe energy is evidently too gross for such storage. Further, although the cells perish, the memories go on, existing, evidently, forever. 

A facsimile of yesterday’s hurt toe can be brought back today with the full force of the impact. Everything which occurs around the body, whether it is asleep or awake, is recorded as a facsimile and is stored. 

There are facsimiles of anything and everything the body has ever perceived—seen, heard, felt, smelled, tasted, experienced—from the first moment of existence. There are pleasure facsimiles and bored facsimiles, facsimiles of sudden death and quick success, facsimiles of quiet decay and gradual struggle.

The sensations are stored either as memories, or as facsimiles of the moment they are received. Everything is recorded even in the state of sleep or unconsciousness of a person. Memories do not carry charge (energy) because they are assimilated. Only facsimiles carry charge (tension) because they are unassimilated. 

Neither memories nor facsimiles are stored in the cells. They are stored in a field that is seen as an “aura” around the body. The aura continues even when cells perish and regenerate over time.

When the hurt of a toe comes back without any visible cause, there is an activation of underlying invisible facsimiles. There can be other types of unassimilated material, such as, unassimilated concepts (misconceptions) or unassimilated conclusions (misjudgments). 

Memory usually means recalling data of recent times; thus we use the word facsimile, for while it is the whole of which memory is a part, the word memory does not embrace all that has been discovered. 

One should have a very good idea of what a facsimile is. It is a recording of the motions and situations of the physical universe plus the conclusions of the mind based on earlier facsimiles. 

One sees a dog chase a cat. Long after dog and cat are gone one can recall that a dog chased a cat. While the action was taking place one saw the scene, one heard the sounds, one might even smell the dog or cat. As one watched, his own heart was beating, the saline content of his blood was at such and such a point, the weight of one’s body and the position of one’s joints, the feel of one’s clothing, the touch of the air upon the skin, all these things were recorded in full as well. The total of all this would be a unit facsimile. 

Now one could simply recall the fact that one had seen a dog chase a cat. That would be remembering. Or one could concentrate on the matter and, if he was in good mental condition, could again see the dog and the cat, could hear them, could feel the air on his skin, the position of his joints, the weight of his clothing. He could partially or wholly regain the experience. That is to say he could partially or wholly bring to his consciousness the “memory,” the unit facsimile of a dog chasing a cat.

Memory of a certain incident, or a certain time period, takes some concentrated effort to recall if you want all the detailed sensations. The mind would have to reassemble that memory from assimilated data.

However, it is different with a facsimile. The facsimile is a package of detailed raw unassimilated sensations in one place. This also takes concentrated effort, but instead of reassembly, it allows raw sensations to assimilate and come into consciousness for the first time. This is accompanied by dissipation of the charge of raw sensations.

One does not have to be drugged or hypnotized or have faith in order to do this. People do variations of this recall without any knowledge of this science and suppose that “everybody does it.” The person with a good memory is only a person who can regain his facsimiles easily. A little child in school learns, today, by repetition. It isn’t necessary. If he gets good grades it is usually because he simply brings back “to mind,” which is to say, to his awareness, the facsimile of the page of text on which he is being examined. 

As one goes through Life he records twenty-four hours a day, asleep and awake, in pain, under anesthetic, happy or sad. These facsimiles are usually recorded with all perceptics, which is to say, with every sense channel. In the person who has a missing sense channel such as deafness, that portion of the facsimile is missing. 

A full facsimile is a sort of three-dimensional color picture with sound and smell and all other perceptions plus the conclusions or speculations of the individual. 

Hubbard implies that all memory is ideally eidetic or photographic. However, much of the content in memory is assimilated into concepts and knowledge over time. Once a person has understood the text he has studied, he no longer requires the exact recall of its pages.

Some content of the memory may remain eidetic depending on its uniqueness or its importance to the person. However, facsimiles are always eidetic when they are assimilated for the first time. Afterwards they convert into memories, concepts and knowledge.

It was once, many years ago, noticed by a student of the mind that children had this faculty of seeing and hearing in memory what they had actually seen and heard. And it was noted that the ability did not last. No further study was made of the matter and indeed, so obscure were these studies that I did not know about them during the early stages of my own work.

We know a great deal about these facsimiles now—why they are not easily recovered by most people when they grow up, how they change, how the imagination can begin to remanufacture them as in hallucination or dreaming. 

Briefly, a person is as aberrated as he is unable to handle his facsimiles. He is as sane as he can handle his facsimiles. He is as ill as he is unable to handle his facsimiles. He is as well as he can handle them. 

That portion of this new science which is devoted to the rehabilitation of the mind and body deals with the phenomena of handling these facsimiles. 

A person ought to be able to pick up and inspect and lay aside at will any facsimile he has. It is not a goal of this new science to restore full recall perception, it is the goal to rehabilitate the ability of a person to handle his facsimiles. 

When a person CANNOT handle his facsimiles, he can pull them into present time and discover himself unable to get rid of them again. 

Memories naturally assimilate into concepts, knowledge and wisdom. But facsimiles need to be understood better. While a person remains unconscious of his facsimiles, his thinking is influenced by them. This results in aberrated behavior and psychosomatic ills whose source is hidden.

What is psychosomatic illness? Demonstrably, it is the pain contained in a past experience or the physical malfunction of a past experience. The facsimile of that experience gets into present time and stays with the person until a shock drops it out of sight again or until it is processed out by this new science. A shock or necessity, however, permits it to come back. 

Grief, sorrow, worry, anxiety and any other emotional condition is simply one or more of these facsimiles. A circumstance of death, let us say, causes one to grieve. Then one has a facsimile containing grief. Something causes the individual to bring that facsimile into present time. He is unaware of it, is not inspecting it, but it acts against him nevertheless. Thus he is grieving in present time and does not know why. The reason is the old facsimile. The proof that it is the reason lies in processing. The instant the facsimile is discharged of its painful emotion, the individual recovers. This is processing in one of its phases.

There is a physics of facsimiles that needs to be fully explored. Scientology research has resulted in methods that address facsimiles in general. According to Scientology, it is the excitation of facsimiles without assimilation that brings about psychosomatic illnesses and other aberrations.

The human mind is only a phase of the continuing mind. The first spark of life which began animating matter upon Earth began recording facsimiles. And it recorded from there on out. It is interesting that the entire file is available to any mind. In previous investigations I occasionally found facsimiles, which were not hallucination or imagination, which seemed to go back much earlier than the present life to the pre-clear. Having by then the tool of effort processing, it was possible to “turn on” a facsimile with all perceptics at will and so it was possible to examine the earliest periods possible. The genetic blueprint was thus discovered and I was startled to have laid bare, accessible to any future investigator, the facsimiles of the evolutionary line. Many auditors have since accomplished the same results and thus the biologist and anthropologist come into possession of a mine of fascinating data. 

Facsimiles have been recorded since the beginning of life. We find facsimiles that go back much earlier than the present life to the person. There are techniques that can bring these facsimiles into consciousness. This has led to the discovery of a genetic blueprint.

There are those who know nothing of the mind and yet who get amply paid for it who will talk wisely about illusion and delusion. There happen to be exact and precise laws to delusion. An imaginary incident follows certain patterns. An actual incident is entirely unmistakable. There is a standard behavior in a facsimile of an actual experience: It behaves in a certain way; the individual gets the efforts and perceptions with clarity and the content of the incident expands and remains fairly constant on several recounting. An imaginary incident contracts in content ordinarily and the individual seeks to keep up his interest then by embroidering it. Further, it has no constant efforts in it. Those who cannot take time to establish the actuality of facsimiles before becoming wise about “delusion” are themselves possibly quite delusory people. 

The human mind, as the present mind of mind, differs not at all from the most elementary of minds, that of the monocell, except in the complexity of brain appendage. The human being is using facsimiles to evaluate experience and form conclusions and future plans on how to survive in the best possible manner or how to die and start over again.

The actual facsimiles represent unassimilated sensations that are part of the “unconscious” or the “reactive” mind. Assimilation of such facsimiles has been the subject of meditation since ancient times. The same effort now continues in psychology and in Scientology. Much of a  person’s wellness depends on the assimilation of these facsimiles.

The human mind is capable of very complex combinations of facsimiles. Further, it can originate facsimiles on the basis of old facsimiles. Nothing goes wrong with the mind except its abilities to handle facsimiles. Occasionally a mind becomes incapable of using a facsimile as past experience and begins to use it in present time continually as an apology for failure. Then we have aberration and psychosomatic illness. A memory of pain contains pain and can become present time pain. A memory of emotion contains emotion and can become present time emotion.

There happen to be exact and precise laws to thought. The human mind is capable of very complex combinations of facsimiles. These facsimiles are simply waiting to be assimilated. Proper assimilation of facsimiles can even bring about new abilities. 

.