Reference: Hubbard 1950: Dianetics TMSMH
These are some comments on Book Two, Chapter 3, “The Cell and the Organism” from DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH.
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Comments on
The Cell and the Organism
KEY WORDS: Sentient, Unconsciousness, lock, Justification, Dramatization, Valences
Hubbard postulates that humans are sentient because each individual cell of the body is sentient. This sentience enters the body when a human soul enters the sperm and ovum at conception.
According to Hubbard, the source of sentience is the human soul.
Hubbard postulates that the cell being sentient retains imprints (engrams) of painful events. The reactive mind is the combined cellular intelligence. The primitive intelligence of the reactive mind takes over when the analytical mind fails. It uses pain to whip the body into performing the most basic survival actions.
According to Hubbard, the primitive sentience is devoted to ensuring the survival of the cells and the body.
But human soul is a mystical concept. Sentience can be explained in terms of greater sophistication of the human organism. The body is an electro-chemical system. There is an inherent impulse unique to the electromagnetic field that surrounds the body of the person. This is the soul. The mind is a phenomenon of this electromagnetic field. It controls the activity of the body by manipulating its chemistry through electrical signals.
The human soul is the inherent impulse unique to the electromagnetic field of the sperm and ovum at conception.
Perceptions are continually reaching the mind as electromagnetic signals originating from the sense organs. The cells, of course, have their role to play. These perceptions get differentiated into fine perceptual elements and get assimilated into the mental matrix. The organism does not become aware of these perceptions until they are assimilated.
Ideally all incoming perceptions get assimilated in the mental matrix at which point the organism becomes aware of them.
Assimilation means differentiating perceptions into fine perceptual elements and associating them so they are continuous, consistent and harmonious throughout the mental matrix. When the incoming perceptions cannot be assimilated they are queued in a holding area for gradient assimilation.
When a perception cannot be assimilated it is queued in a holding area for later gradient assimilation.
A person experiences shock and pain, because the perceptions pack too much information in too little time and space to be differentiated. There are simply too many moving pieces to differentiate. This is called high RANDOMITY. As a result the assimilation of such perception (and its awareness) suffers.
When the randomness is so high that the assimilation stops, we have UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
These unassimilated perceptions appear as literal recordings. The organism is not conscious of these recordings because they are unassimilated. In Hubbard’s terminology, these unassimilated perceptions are ENGRAMS, and their holding area is REACTIVE BANK.
Engram and the Reactive mind are most likely situated in the body’s electromagnetic field (aura).
When the person experiences something similar to the engram its perceptions get associated with those of the engram. When this experience is mild it gets assimilated, but then it forms a bridge to the engram. This gives the engram access to the mental circuits. The mild incident that helps the engram this way, is called a LOCK. The person is aware of the lock, but he is not aware of the engram.
A LOCK is a mild incident that serves to hook the engram to the circuits of the mental matrix.
A RESTIMULATOR is something in the environment, which is similar to the recording of the engram. When a restimulator is present, the engram gets KEYED IN the mental circuit. This makes the body act out the recording of the engram. The person does not know why he is acting that way. He feels stupid.
When the engram keys in, the person acts out the engram without knowing why he is acting that way.
People who make us feel stupid are in some manner using words, voice tones, music, etc. that “restimulate” our engrams. An engram, even when slightly restimulated, reduces our ability to discriminate and makes us feel stupid. This is the reason why many young boys get very confused in the presence of a beautiful girl.
When a person does not know why he is acting the way he is, he makes up some explanation. This is called a JUSTIFICATION.
Hubbard refers to the acting out of an engram as DRAMATIZATION. In a dramatization a person may do and say exactly the same things done and said to him or her.
Usually there are multiple dramatic personnel in an engram. Hubbard refers to such “personalities” as VALENCES. When the engram is keyed in the person dramatizes one of these valences. Usually, he dramatizes the winning valence. If the winning valence cannot be dramatized then he may dramatize another valence, which could be his own losing valence in the engram.
Hubbard says, “If one set out to resolve the problem of aberration by a system of cataloguing everything he observed and were unaware of the basic source, he would end up with as many separate insanities, neuroses, psychoses, compulsions, repressions, obsessions and disabilities as there are combinations of words in the English language.”
The natural solution is, of course, doing what was missed—the assimilation of the engram into the mental matrix.
Hubbard says, “The cells evolved into an organism and in the evolution created what was once a necessary condition of mind. Man has grown up to a point where he creates now the means of overcoming that evolutionary blunder.”
This is not an evolutionary blunder. Man has gained sentience only because of the evolution of a very fine mental matrix. Now he must learn how to assimilate painful traumas.
Hubbard’s technique of auditing requires dependence on another person.
It is now possible for an individual to assimilate his engrams (traumas) all by himself.
This is covered in later chapters.
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