This paper presents Chapter 8
from the book DIANETICS: THE ORIGINAL THESIS by L.
RON HUBBARD. The contents are from the original
publication of this book by The Hubbard Dianetic Foundation, Inc. (1948).
The paragraphs of the original
material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the
present understanding. Feedback on these comments is appreciated.
The heading below is linked to
the original materials.
.
There are several general types
of engrams. It must be understood that the mind possesses a time track of one
sort or another and that this track is a specific thing. The time track of an
individual will include all those things available to his analytical mind when
in a light trance or during regression. However, a person can be regressed and
the data which he can easily contact along his time track is definitely not
engramic even if it possesses an emotional charge. Everything on this track will
be rational or justified experience. It will not include engrams. It may
include locks—which is to say that it may include moments of mental anguish or
antagonism and may even include instants of unconsciousness which have some
slight engramic command value.
The matrix model of mindfulness is more comprehensive
than the time track model of Dianetics. All data merged into the mental matrix
is analytical and it is available to the individual. Dianetics uses regression
but there is no need for regression in mindfulness meditation. Data relevant to
contemplation comes up automatically when the mind is not interfered with, and
allowed to unwind at its own pace. Well-focused attention is adequate.
The content of the aberrated node is not significant. What
is significant is the inconsistency which that node presents to rest of the
mental matrix. In other words, the significant aspect is anything that does not
make sense. As the mind sorts out the inconsistencies, charge (tension) blows
off. Locks-secondary-engram is simply the gradient in which inconsistencies
present themselves to be resolved. Resolution comes about as the node under
attention unwinds. The contents of the node then assimilate into the matrix.
An engram has several specific,
positive characteristics. It is received by the individual at some moment of
physical pain. It is not available to the analyzer and it includes conceived or
actual antagonism to the survival of the organism. Certain mechanics such as
“forget it” may swerve a minimumly painful or unconscious experience off the
time track. In that case it becomes possessed of engramic command value.
All engrams with power to
derange the analytical mind and aberrate the physical body, lie off the time
track and are not available to the analytical mind.
By reason of its
disorganization during the moment the engram was received, or because it has
been forcibly instructed that the data in the engram is not to be recalled, the
analyzer cannot reach the engram by ordinary means because the data has been
erroneously labelled “dangerous,” “important,” or “too painful to touch.” The
engram then, by a bypass circuit, feeds hidden commands into the analyzer. By a
direct instantaneous circuit it is permanently connected to the motor controls,
all perceptic channels, the glands, and heart. It is awaiting a moment of low
general tone, weariness, or injury when the analytical mind has reduced powers.
It is also awaiting the perception of one or more of the engram’s restimulators
in the environment of the organism.
At
the root of engram is a shock or pain that translates as intense confusion to
the mind. When the engram is received the mind is unable to process that
confusion on the spot. This confusion releases when there is adequate attention
and enough time to let it unwind. An individual should never be forced into the
engram, especially when he is weak and tired. That will only bring the
“hypnotic” effects of the engram into play.
Continuous restimulation of the
engrams can, in itself, cause a low general tone which in its turn permits more
engrams to become restimulated. As the reactive mind comes into a more or less
completely chronic state of restimulation, the individual becomes more and more
governed by this mind. His thought becomes more and more engramic and he can be
seen to drop in general tone on the tone scale down to the break point which
may be arbitrarily placed somewhere between 2 and 2.5 and below which lies the
region of insanity.
If
a person is low on the Tone Scale, and he is behaving irrationally then he has
many engrams that are in an activated state. He may not be able to concentrate on
them and let his mind unwind.
Engramic thought is irrational
identity-thought by which the mind is made to conceive identities where only
vague similarities may exist. It is necessary that the auditor thoroughly
understand engramic thought, for it is with this complete irrationality of
identity that he will basically deal. As he works with any preclear, he must
continually employ in the bulk of his computation on the case the equation of
engramic thinking.
Engramic thinking can be stated by: A equals A equals A equals A equals
A.
The engram, when one or more of
its restimulators is perceived in the environment during a moment of low general
tone, may dramatize. The dramatization is the precise content of the engram.
The aberration is the precise content of the engram. The reaction of an
individual’s analytical mind when an engram is reactivated is justification.
There is reason to believe that
part of this survival mechanism consists of the axiom: The analyzer must
never permit an incorrect solution. The engram brings about many incorrect
solutions. The analyzer may very well become entirely involved with the attempt
to discover and deliver to a society, or to itself, adequate rational reasons
for the behavior of the organism.
A
person is irrational to the degree he is unable to differentiate among things.
Since he is unable to perceive his irrationality he justifies his behavior. His
irrationality may be traced through his justifications.
The analytical mind, though
working from the command of the engram itself, is unaware of the source of the
command. Not being able to discover the source, it introverts more and more in
an effort to solve a problem which contains danger to the organism. The
analytical mind tends to find the danger without and within the organism.
When
a person senses that something is wrong with him, and he can’t find the reason,
then he increasingly introverts.
There are five ways that the
organism can react to a danger in its vicinity. It can attack it, avoid it,
neglect it, run from it, or succumb to it. In just these ways can the
analytical mind, which, it must be remembered, is possessed of self-determinism
and will power, react to the reactive mind. As the general tone lowers, as the
analytical mind becomes less and less powerful through weariness, continual
reverses in general health, etc., the more and more heed it must give to the
problems unsolved in the reactive mind. These are in essence unsolved problems.
As such, they contain their own solutions. The analytical mind, unable to reach
them, justifies the organism’s reaction to them (succumbs to them), causes the
organism to attempt to flee from them, apathetically may neglect them (as in
prefrontal lobotomy), avoids them in many intricate ways, or attacks them. The
analytical mind is not only not certain where the experience lies on the time
track, it also does not know whether the menace is within the organism or
without it. So it can become entirely indiscriminate, and eventually it may
achieve highly irrational solutions by which it seeks to solve the problems of
the highly irrational reactive mind.
There
are five ways that a person deals with a threat: attack it, avoid it, neglect
it, run from it, or succumb to it. His handling of threat may become highly irrational
too.
The deep sensory perception
channel entering the mind is evidently equipped with an “appreciator” which
sorts according to the momentary general tone or potential of the analytical
mind. The higher the general tone or potential of the analytical mind the
better the data in the appreciator is sorted. The appreciator circuits are
evidently fully apprised of engramic content in the reactive mind and evaluate
restimulators perceived in the environment against the general tone of the
analytical mind. When that is low, restimulators route more or less directly to
the reactive mind which instantly responds by fixed connections into the motor
controls. Commands to the various members, muscles, glands and organs of the
body may be sporadic or constant, producing a high variety of responses in the
body. Entire vocabularies are fed into the voice circuits directly from the
reactive mind when an engram is restimulated. Orders to be active or inactive
are fed to other portions. The individual time track of the engram spaces the
commands to the organism and a dramatization is accomplished which may contain
a portion or all of the content of the engram as governed by the situation.
Psychosomatic ills, hysterias, rages, tantrums, criminal acts and any and all
content prejudicial to the survival of the organism in which the organism is
seen to be indulging has as its source the reactive mind.
The sole and only content of
the reactive mind is what exterior sources have done to the organism.
None of the content of the
reactive mind is self-motivated. The auditor is then interested only in what is
done to the person, not what the person himself has done, since, for purposes
of auditing, the acts of the organism in its society can be discounted beyond
diagnosis. Even then they are of small importance to the auditor.
The
engramic node short circuits the mind when activated. Its content causes
psychosomatic illnesses as well as irrational behavior. It is a systemic
problem. The person cannot be blamed for it. What needs to be resolved is why
the person is behaving the way he is.
An organism possessed of an
analytical mind, not victimized by incapacitating disease or injury (and
unimpeded) will commit no act knowingly prejudicial to the survival of the
organism or other facets within the dynamics. It will combat only those dangers
in society, which are actual menaces.
Whatever may be the status of
the “innate moral sense,” the basic intent of the basic personality is to
further various energy forms along the dynamics toward the goal. Only moments
of actual dispersal of the awareness of the analytical mind permit data to be
received which is prejudicial to the intent of the dynamics. Only from these
“unconscious” moments can the basically stable and enormously powerful and able
analytical mind be aberrated through the implantation of unanalyzed, painfully
administered, and antagonistic information. It is the purpose of the auditor to
find and exhaust these moments from the life of the individual. Dianetic
auditing includes therefore, as its basic principle, the exhaustion of all the
painfully unconscious moments of a subject’s life. By eradicating pain from the
life of an individual, the auditor returns the individual to complete
rationality and sanity.
The auditor should never be
content with merely bringing the person back to normal. He should achieve with
the person a tone 4 even though this is far in advance of the average state of
society at this time. A tone 4 with his drives intact and powerful, with his
rationality and intelligence increased to the optimum, becomes extremely
valuable to the society, whatever his past.
Knowing this the auditor can
expect a maximum result of lasting duration with any preclear not physically
hopeless.
Dianetics
proposes to remove all the painfully unconscious moments of a person’s life.
Mindfulness focuses on the removal of all confusions. When one does the latter
all painfully unconscious moments also come out in the wash. The outcome is a
person who is way above normal.
The entire purpose of the
auditor is to rehabilitate the basic dynamic and the normal purpose or profession
of the individual whom he audits. Anything implanted by positive suggestion or
“education” in the course of auditing is harmful and must be cancelled if
delivered. Only the basic personality of the individual can decide and evaluate
things in his environment. Therefore, hypnotism as practiced with positive
suggestions should be shunned since any and all hypnotic commands with the
attendant forgetter mechanisms are no more than artificially implanted engrams.
Indeed, it is quite usual for the auditor to have to exhaust hypnotically
implanted material received either from some hypnotist or from the analytical
mind itself when the person has been operating under auto-control. Hypnotism as
such does not work, and a study and short practice in Dianetics will reveal
exactly why.
Any
“positive suggestion” implanted in the mind through hypnotism, indoctrination
or education is harmful to the individual, as it bypasses understanding and is
not fully integrated into the mental matrix.
The auditor is attempting to
delete the reactive mind from the individual. This reactive mind is an
infestation of foreign, careless and unreasoning commands which disrupt the
self-determinism of the individual to such an extent that he no longer has
charge, through his analytical mind, of the organism itself but finds himself
under the continual and chronic orders of unseen, never reviewed exterior
forces, often and usually antipathetic to the survival of the organism.
Engrams deal with identities
where no identities exist. They therefore pose many strange and irrational
problems which are seen as aberrations in preclears. If a human being has been
born, he can be supposed to have at least one engram. Anyone who has a birth
which has not been cleared by therapy has therefore a reactive mind. There is
no disgrace attached to having a reactive mind since it was thrust without his
consent and without his knowledge upon an unconscious and helpless individual.
Sometimes this was done by persons with the best of imaginable intentions. A
person not possessed of a rational mind cannot be rationally considered to be
morally responsible, no matter the demands of the current society which
hitherto lacked any method of determining responsibility.
The
process of birth may result in an engramic node.
The pain contained in the
reactive mind is normally severe. The usual parental punishments, family
complications, reprimands, minor accidents and the battle of the individual
with his environment, influence but do not cause a reactive mind, nor do these
things have the power to change materially the reactions of an individual.
In the background of any
individual exist many hidden personalities contained in the reactive mind.
Dealing in identities, the reactive mind often confuses identities of
individuals. Therefore, irrational attachments and antipathies are formed by
aberrated individuals who can often find no reason for such attachments or
antipathies in their contemporary environment.
The content of an engram is
literally interpreted, not as it was stated to the “unconscious” subject, but
as it was received in its most literal phraseology and perception.
The organism possesses many
inherent mechanisms and abilities by which it can learn or preserve or forward
itself along the dynamics. Any one of them may be exaggerated by engrams to a
point where it becomes an actual threat to the organism or impedes it. Engrams
can and do aberrate all the sensory perceptions, any and all parts of the body,
and the mind itself. By demanding suicide the engram can destroy the entire
organism.
The error of the reactive mind
was introduced by the evolution of speech, for which the basic mechanism was
not designed. When all perceptics save speech formed the reactive mind, it was
to some degree serviceable. With speech came such complexities of perception
and such interchanges of ideas that a whole series of illusions and delusions
could be derived from the reactive mind’s necessity to determine identities for
purposes of emergency.
With speech the reactive mind
came to possess far more power and extensive content. The analytical mind,
being a delicate mechanism in some respects no matter how rugged and capable in
others, then could become subjected to delusions and illusions which, however
shadowy and unreal, must nevertheless be obeyed. By stripping the reactive mind
of its past painful content the analytical mind may be placed in complete
command of the organism.
The
evolution of speech has greatly contributed to the aberrations generated by the
engramic node.
The moment a man or a group
becomes possessed of this ability, it becomes possessed of self-determinism. So
long as these possess reactive minds, irrationalities will persist. Because it
contains literal speech, no reactive mind can be conceived to be of any value
whatsoever to the rational organism since the methods of that reactive mind
remain intact and will continue to act to preserve the organism in times of
“unconsciousness” of the analytical mind. There is no residual good in any
reactive mind. It is capable of any illusion. It has no assist power along the
dynamics save only to cancel or modify other reactive mind content. The source
of the individual’s power and purpose is not derived from the reactive mind but
from the Basic Dynamic and its eight divisions. Any auditor will establish this
to his own satisfaction after he has run a very few cases.
When an individual during
auditing is attempting to “hold on to his aberrations,” the auditor may be
assured that that person has as part of the content of the reactive mind such
phrases as, “don’t dare get rid of it,” which, identically translated,
apparently applies to aberrations. It may, in fact, apply in an engram containing
an attempted abortion.
The identity factor in the
reactive mind may cause the analytical mind to respond irrationally in auditing
and to justify the aberrations in many irrational ways. Whatever means he uses
or statements he makes to avoid the exhaustion of his reactive mind is
contained exactly in the reactive mind as a positive suggestion and has no
application whatsoever in rational thought.
Individuality (if by that is
meant a man’s desires and habits) is not traced to the reactive mind save when
by individuality is meant those flagrant eccentricities which pass in Dickens for
characters.
A man is much more an
individual after his reactive mind has been cleared.
An
individual becomes himself or herself after the confusions and flaws in the
mind are cleared.
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Final Comments
KEY WORDS: Time Track, Locks, Black Panther mechanism, birth.
The Dianetic theory says that engrams (perceptions congealed due to shock and pain and stored) are the source of all aberrations. Engram resolves when one becomes aware of its contents. Engramic content may be accessed by guessing and mimicking it. The Dianetic approach tries to dig into the mind and is dangerous. It can have unintended consequences resulting in mental conditioning.
Mindfulness
says that all aberrations are caused by perceptions that could not be
assimilated into the mental matrix. Such perceptions remain as unassimilated
nodes, among which are engramic nodes. Such nodes may be assimilated by letting
the mind unwind without interfering with it. The mindfulness approach is a more
gradient approach.
Shock
corrupts the functioning of the mind by congealing the perceptions of painful
experience into engramic nodes. Such nodes take time to unwind. But with
mindfulness approach combined with intense focus these engramic nodes may be
diffused relatively quickly.
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