Reference: Hubbard 1950: Dianetics TMSMH
These are some comments on Book Two, Chapter 6, “Emotion and the Dynamics” from DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH.
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Comments on
Emotion and the Dynamics
KEY WORDS: Emotion, Suppressors
Emotion seems to be inextricably connected up with the actual force of life. When an individual’s dynamics are increasingly suppressed he descends into the emotions of hostility, anger, rage, fear, terror, and apathy. In this range of emotions he starts to become increasing irrational and reactive in his behavior.
The life force when suppressed produces various emotions.
Under normal circumstances, perceptions get continually assimilated in the mental matrix. The inherent impulse continually running through the mental matrix becomes the response as the perceptions are assimilated. It is similar to the electrical impulse that moves through the circuits of a computer naturally without effort, and forms a response. The response from mental matrix then directs the organism in real time. This function is natural and lightening fast. The situations are assessed and acted upon based on assimilated experience. There is imagination and prediction. The necessity level is brought up, as needed, to handle the situation. Adrenalin helps. So there is learning. It is all very rational and straightforward. The emotion associated with it is calm and serene.
Emotion breaks down in terms of the endocrine system and the surging of life force to handle the situation.
But when there are engrams hooked up into the circuits there is dimming of awareness and precipitation of reactive behavior, since the traumatic perceptions are not assimilated in the mental matrix. Not having access to the engrams, the mental matrix is forced to make projections and come up with justifications for the irrational reactive behavior. There is attention and additional effort involved to figure out the reasons. Such justifications, obviously, are approximations in the absence of the actual truth. Therefore, they corrupt the experience and pose problems for the future, generating anxiety.
The life force that is normally calm and serene becomes agitated and turbulent In the presence of engrams.
The incidents encountered by the organism, which generate engrams are called external suppressors. These suppressors then continue to influence the organism through dramatization of the trauma and the corruption of experience. These influences then become internal suppressors that reduce the person’s ability to handle external suppressors. Thus, a dwindling spiral ensues throughout one’s life. These suppressors push the person down in the emotions of hostility, anger, rage, fear, terror, until he becomes apathetic.
The turbulence of life force ultimately ends up in the condition of apathy.
When a person dramatizes an engram he may express the emotion of different valences in that engram. These emotions are acute as they last only for the duration of the dramatization. But underlying such outbursts is the chronic emotion of the person, which depends on the accumulated internal suppressors influencing that person.
Emotion may then be seen as a personal condition resulting from the damming of the life force.
When this dammed up life force is released in any amount there is always relief followed by laughter. Thus, laughter is the relief of painful emotion.
A person who is calm and serene with no internal suppressors is called a “clear” in Dianetics.
A “clear” can handle external suppressors with greater ability. He can keep himself cleared of any residual influence of trauma that he encounters. Dianetic procedure may handle some internal suppressors through an auditor, but not all, as they do not train a person to handle himself.
In Dianetics, an auditor, in the long run, introduces more complications than it resolves in another person.
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