Reference: The Book of Scientology
Thought, Emotion and Effort
Please see the original section at the link above.
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Summary
Thought is the least condensed substance that there is. It starts to become condensed down the tone scale. At the top of the tone scale the thought is free and the awareness is clear. Down the tone scale the thought acquires stimulus-response characteristics due to increasing identification, and the awareness becomes cloudy.
Hubbard believed that the clear thought is established by will, and that the stimulus-response characteristics come from counter-efforts of the surrounding MEST universe. But, will is the faculty of conscious and deliberate action associated with the concept of self, and self comes from a lasting identification of awareness with the postulates. Self is a subjective feeling that it is the source of postulates, but it is not aware of its own nature.
Ideally, awareness is completely free and fully aware of the postulates it is surrounded by. It is aware of postulates, just like it is aware of energy and matter. But as awareness is identified with postulates, there comes about the thought of a self as the source of postulates. As that identification deepens, the thought of self condenses, and MEST characteristics of stimulus-response start to manifest.
We see a law of thought emerging here. Stimulus-response behavior is proportional to the degree of identification of awareness with thought, resulting in increasing fixation of attention on self.
Thought is intimately associated with the idea of self. Self is then defined as the source of thought, while it itself is a thought. Thus we have a circular definition, which is the hallmark of identification.
Thought is the lightest substance, which starts unbounded and free at the top of the tone scale. As it descends down the tone scale it gets condensed with increasing identification with the concept of self. It thus acquires stimulus-response characteristics. This has nothing to do with “thetan inside the head,” but it has to do with fixation on the body.
Postulates provide the framework in which reasoning takes place. As thought condenses, reasoning also becomes increasingly illogical taking on stimulus-response characteristics.
Emotions are the expression of the tone characteristic of the thought. These emotions become quite observable at the lower part of the tone scale. The emotions link the thought to the effort exerted through the body.
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Comments
Hubbard starts out with a mathematical equation for life as the Theta-MEST theory. This is the dichotomy of two extreme conditions of life. Theta is total freedom and MEST is total slavery.
Hubbard associates the mathematical symbol ‘theta’ with the subjective feelings of self and will; and the mathematical symbol of MEST with the surrounding universe. He then identifies the surrounding universe with what is being postulated by self.
To Hubbard, this theory encompasses all that one can know, and nothing falls outside of it. Hubbard does not entertain the concept of unknowable. But all that we know is through postulates. What then is this self that postulates?
If we look closely, the Theta-MEST dichotomy ultimately reduces to the dichotomy of Unknowable-Knowable.
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