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Reference: DIANETICS: The Original Thesis

This paper presents Chapter 16 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.

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The “Laws” of Returning

By aberration is meant the aberree’s reactions to and difficulties with his current environment.

By somatic is meant any physical or physically sensory abnormality which the preclear manifests generally or sporadically in his environment, or any such manifestation encountered and re-experienced during auditing.

The aberration is the mental error caused by engrams and the somatic is the physical error occasioned by the same source.

According to Dianetics, the source of all aberrations and somatics are engrams.

The auditor follows the general rule that no aberrations or somatics exist in a subject which cannot be accounted for by engrams. He may ordinarily be expected to discover that anything which reduces the physical or mental perfection of the subject is engramic. He applies this rule first and in practice admits no organic trouble of any character. Only when he has obviously obtained a Clear and when he has observed and has had that Clear medically examined after a period of sixty days to six months from the end of auditing should he be content to assign anything to organic origin. He cannot be expected to know until the final examination exactly what somatic was not engramic. In other words he must persistently adhere to one line of thought (that the preclear can be brought to mental and physical perfection) before he resigns any mental or physical error in the preclear to a purely organic category. Too little is known at this writing of the recoverability of the mind and body for a dianeticist to deny that ability to recover. Since primary research, considerable practice has demonstrated that this ability to reconstruct and recover is enormous, far beyond anything previously conceived possible.

Dianetics assumes that all psychiatric and medical problems arise from engrams only. Therefore, it does not recommend any medical or psychiatric treatment. Exceptions are medical treatments for obvious injuries like cuts, broken bones, etc.

Essentially, the Dianetic thesis is saying that the aberrated electric signals from the mind bring about aberrated chemical changes in the body; and the focus should be on fixing the aberrated electric signals.

Dianetics accounts for all faith healing phenomena on an entirely scientific basis and the dianeticist can expect himself to consort daily in his practice with what appear to be miracles.

In addition to knowledge of his subject, considerable intelligence and imagination, and a personality which inspires confidence, the dianetic auditor must possess persistency to a remarkable degree. In other words, his drives must be phenomenally high. There is no substitute for the auditor’s having been cleared. It is possible for an individual to operate with Dianetics without having been released and he may do so for some time without repercussion, but as he audits he will most certainly encounter the perceptics contained in some of his own engrams time after time until these engrams are so restimulated that he will become mentally or physically ill.

When an auditor is handling the auditee, it is basically a mind handling another mind. It is difficult for an aberrated mind to handle the aberrations of the mind. So, the auditor must somehow prevent his own aberrated circuits from getting activated while trying to fix another mind’s aberrated circuits.

In psychoanalysis it was possible for the analyst to escape this fate because he dealt primarily with locks occurring in the post-speech life. The analyst might even experience relief from operating on patients since it might clarify his own locks which always had been more or less completely available to his analytical mind. This is very far from the case with the dianeticist who handles continually the vital and highly charged data which cause physical and mental aberrations. An auditor in Dianetics may work with impunity for a very short time only before his own condition demands that he himself be audited. While this is aside from the main subject of auditing, it has been too often observed to be neglected.

Very often the auditor’s aberrated circuits get activated when addressing the aberrated circuits of the auditee. This is a problem often observed in Dianetics. It is a problem observed in most professions dealing with the mind. It mainly manifests itself as sexual abuse. Look at the Catholic Church.

Every engram possesses some quality which denies it to the analytical mind. There are several types. First there is the “denyer” engram which contains the species of phrase, “Frank will never know about this,” “Forget it!” “Cannot remember it!” and so forth. Second is the self-invalidating engram which contains the phrases, “Never happened,” “Can’t believe it,” “Wouldn’t possibly imagine it,” and so on.

Third is the “bouncer” engram which contains the species of phrase, “Can’t stay here,” “Get out!” and other phrases which will not permit the preclear to remain in its vicinity but return him to present time. A fourth is the “holder” engram which contains “Stay here,” “Hold still,” “Can’t get out,” and so on.

These are four of the general types which the dianeticist will find occasion him the greatest difficulty. The type of phrase being encountered, however, is easily diagnosed from preclear reaction.

There are many other types of engrams and phrases which will be encountered. There is the self-perpetuating engram which implies that, “It will always be this way,” and “It happens all the time.” The auditor will soon learn to recognize them, forming lists of his own.

An aberrated mind cannot fully identity similar aberrations in another mind. For the same reason, a mind cannot identify its own aberrations. Therefore, Dianetics uses repetition of certain “engramic phrases” used by the auditee to, hopefully, bring up the engramic incident.

An engram would not be an engram unless it had strong compulsive or repressive data contained in it. All engrams are self-locking to some degree, being well off the time track and touching it slightly, if at all, with some minor and apparently innocuous bit of information which the analytical mind disregards as unimportant. Classed with the denyer variety are those phrases which deny perception of any kind. The dianetic auditor will continually encounter perception denial and will find it one of the primary reasons the preclear cannot recall and articulate the engram. “Can’t see,” “Can’t hear,” “Can’t feel,” and “Isn’t alive” tend to deny the whole engram containing any such phrases.

Dianetics thesis views “engramic phrases” as hypnotic commands that need to be defused by uncovering the moment when they were received.

As the engram is a powerful surcharge of physical pain, it will without any phrases whatsoever deny itself to the analytical mind which, in seeking to scan the engram, is repelled by the operating principle that it must avoid pain for the organism. As has already been covered, there are five ways the organism can handle a source of pain. It can neglect it, attack it, succumb to it, flee from it, or avoid it. As the entire organism handles exterior pain sources, so does the analytical mind tend to react to engrams. There is an exterior world reaction of the organism to pain sources then. This is approximated when the analytical mind is addressed in regard to engrams. There is an excellent reason for this. Everything contained in the reactive mind is exterior source material. The analytical mind went out of circuit and was recording imperfectly if at all in the time period when the exterior source was entered into the reactive mind.

Dianetics points out that there are five ways the organism can handle a source of pain—neglect it, attack it, succumb to it, flee from it, or avoid it. The dianetic procedure attacks the engram. This requires facing the pain of the engram.

An analytical mind when asked to approach an engram reacts as it would have had it been present, which is to say, in circuit, at the moment when the engram was being received. Therefore, an artificial approach to the engram must be made which will permit the auditor to direct the subject’s analytical mind into but one source of action: Attack.

The actual incident must be located and re-experienced. In that the analytical mind has five possible ways of reacting to the engram and in that the auditor desires that only one of these—attack—be used, the preclear must be persuaded from using the remaining four.

Then mental matrix was overwhelmed when the engram was received. It has been overwhelmed by the irrational actions of the engram since. The dianetic solution is to push through the pain to locate and re-experience the engram. This has led to many difficulties.

On this general principle can be created many types of approach to the problem of obtaining a Clear. The one which is offered in this manual is that one which has met with quicker and more predictable results than others researched at this time. It has given, in use, one hundred per cent results. In the beginning, at this time, an auditor should not attempt to stray far from this offered technique. He should attempt to vary it only when he himself has had extensive and sufficient practice which will enable him to be very conversant with the nature of engrams. Better techniques will undoubtedly be established which will provide swifter exhaustion of the reactive mind. The offered technique has produced results in all types of cases so far encountered.

The technique offered in THE ORIGINAL THESIS requires cleverly using Dianetic phrases to access and re-experience the engrams. This technique requires lot of skill and is limited in its scope. It only gets the low hanging fruits. The researcher, however, is overly optimistic.

There are three equations which demonstrate how and why the auditor and preclear can reach engrams and exhaust them:

I.          The auditor’s dynamics are equal to or less than the engramic surcharge in the preclear.

II.         The preclear’s dynamics are less than the engramic surcharge.

III.        The auditor’s dynamics plus the preclear’s dynamics are greater than the engramic surcharge.

When the preclear’s dynamics are entirely or almost entirely reduced, as in the case of amnesia trance, drug trances and so forth, the auditor’s dynamics are not always sufficient to force the preclear’s analytical mind into an attack upon the engram.

Only the auditee can handle his aberrations. The auditor can do no more than support him.

The auditor’s dynamics directed against an engram in a preclear who has not been subjected to a process which will inhibit the free play of his reactive mind and concentrate it, ordinarily provokes the preclear into one of the four unusable methods of succumbing, fleeing, avoiding or neglecting the engram. Demanding that the preclear “face reality,” or “see reason,” or that he “stop his foolish actions” falls precisely into this category. The auditor’s dynamics operating against an awake preclear can produce an “insanity break,” temporary or of considerable duration in the preclear.

You cannot force the auditee to resolve his irrationality.

When the preclear is in reverie some of his own dynamics are present and the auditor’s dynamics added to these make a combination sufficient to overcome the engramic surcharge.

If the auditor releases his dynamics against the analytical mind of the preclear, which is to say, the person of the preclear, while an attempt is being made to reach an engram (in violation of the auditor’s code, or with some erroneous idea that the whole person of the preclear is confronting him) he will receive in return all the fury of the engramic surcharge.

The auditee is, at least, restraining his engram from dramatizing itself. That restrain may go away if the auditor gets upset with the auditee.

An engram can be dramatized innumerable times, for such is the character of the reactive mind that the surcharge of the engram cannot exhaust itself and will not exhaust itself regardless of its age or the number of times dramatized until it has been approached by the analytical mind of the subject.

The additive dynamic drive law must be made to apply before engrams are reached. It is occasionally very necessary to change dianetic auditors, for some preclears will work well only with either a male or a female auditor, or with one or another individual auditor. This will not be found necessary in many cases. Three cases are on record where the preclear was definitely antipathetic toward the auditor throughout the entire course of auditing. The dianeticist was found to be a restimulator for one or more of the persons contained in the engrams. Even so, these persons responded. Greater patience was required on the part of the auditor. Closer observance of the auditor’s code was necessary and a longer time was required for auditing. It will be discovered that once the preclear understands what is desired of him and why, his basic personality is aroused to the extent that it will cooperate with any auditor in order to be free. It will suffer through many violations of the auditor’s code. Once a preclear has started his auditing he will ordinarily continue to cooperate in the major requirements to the fullest extent, no matter what apparent antagonisms he may display in minor matters.

In Dianetics, if the auditor is not the right one for the auditee the auditing may not work or progress may become very slow.

Reverie is a method that has been used with success. The analytical mind of the preclear, while reduced in its potential and under direction, is still capable of thinking its own thoughts and forming its own opinions. Implicit obedience to whatever the auditor suggests is not desirable as the preclear will inject extraneous material at the faintest suggestion of the auditor. Drugs inhibit the somatic and have no use in entering a case.

Regression reduces the minds ability to think its own thoughts. Drugs inhibit the somatic.

The fact that the dianeticist is interested solely in what has been done to the preclear and is not at all interested in what the preclear himself has done to others greatly facilitates auditing since there is no social disgrace in having been an unwitting victim.

Dianetics only looks at what has been done to the person.

In reverie the preclear is placed in a light state of “concentration” which is not to be confused with hypnosis. In the state of alliance, therefore, the mind of the preclear will be found to be, to some degree, detachable from his surroundings and directed interiorly. The first thing that the dianeticist will discover in most preclears is aberration of the sense of time. There are various ways that he can circumvent this and construct a time track along which he can cause the preclear’s mind to travel. Various early experiences which are easily reached are examined and an early diagnosis can be formed. Then begins an immediate effort to reach basic, with attempted abortion or prenatal accident predominating. Failures on the first attempts to reach prenatal experiences should not discourage the dianetic auditor since many hours may be consumed and many false basics reached and exhausted before the true prenatal basic is attained.

In Dianetics, the auditor puts the person in reverie and sends him back on the time track and examines various early experiences. After that he makes immediate effort to reach the basic.

In this type of reverie the dianeticist can use and will observe certain apparently natural laws in force. They are as follows: The difficulties the analytical mind encounters when returned to or searching for an engram are identical to the command content of that engram.

An aberree in adult life is more or less obeying, as restimulated, the composite experiences contained in his engrams.

The preclear’s behavior in reverie is regulated by the commands contained in the engram to which he is returned and is modified by the composite of chronologically preceding engrams on his time track.

The somatics of a preclear are at their highest in an engram where they were received and at the moment of reception in that experience.

When returned to a point prior to an engram, the commands and somatics of that engram are not effective on the preclear. As he is returned to the moment of an engram, the preclear experiences, as the common denominator of all engrams, a considerable lessening of his analytical potential. He speaks and acts in a modified version of the engram. All complaints he makes to the auditor should be regarded as possibly being verbatim from, first, the engram that he is re-experiencing or, second, from prior engrams.

At the precise moment of an engramic command the preclear experiences obedience to that command. The emotion a preclear experiences when regressed to an engram is identical to the emotional tone of that engram. Excesses of emotion will be found to be contained in the word content of the engram as commands.

Dianetics thesis is that a person is generally behaving hypnotically as dictated by his engrams. Such hypnotic behavior increases when he is returned in auditing and approaches his engrams. He speaks and acts in a modified version of the engram. The somatics are highest when he accesses the engram.

When a preclear is returned to before the moment of reception of an engram he is not subject to any part of that engram, emotionally, aberrationally, or somatically.

When the time track is found to contain loops or is blurred in any portion, its crossings or confusions are directly attributable to engramic commands which precisely state the confusion.

Any difficulty a preclear may experience with returning, reaching engrams, perceiving, or recounting, is directly and precisely commanded by engrams.

An engram would not be an engram were it easy to reach or if it gave the preclear no difficulty and contained no physical pain.

Dianetics believes that engram can be located by moving the auditee up and down on his time track, but even this may become confused by engramic commands. The auditor may guess the engramic commands by observing this confusion.

The characteristic of engrams is confusion. First, the confusion of the time track; second, the confusion of an engramic chain wherein similar words or somatics mix incidents; third, confusion of incidents with engrams.

This confusion is occasioned by the disconnected state of the analytical mind during the receipt of the engram. Auditing by location and identification of hidden incidents, first rebuilds at least the early part of the time track, locates and fixes engrams in relation to one another in time, and then locates the basic of the basic chain and exhausts it. The remainder of the chain must also be exhausted. Other engrams and incidents exhaust with ease after the erasure of the basic or the basic of any chain (within that chain). Locks vanish without being located. A tone four gained on basic permits the subsequent erasure on the time track to go forward with ease. A whole chain may rise to four without the basic chain having been located.

Dianetics believes that once the basic engram is contacted and relieved, the rest of the chain of aberration can be relieved much easily. However, in practice this is relative and not absolute.

Any perception of pre-speech life during reverie denotes the existence of engramic experience as far back as the time track is open.

Photographic memory of early moments of one’s life means that there could be engrams hidden in those moments.

If the individual’s general tone is clearly not tone four, if he is still interested in his engrams, another more basic chain than the one found still exists.

When a person has no engrams his attention will be totally extroverted. He will be rationally considering broader problems beyond himself.

Engramic patterns tend to form an avoidance pattern for the preclear. From basic outward there is an observable and progressive divergence between the person himself and his returned self. In the basic engram of the basic chain and for a few subsequent incidents on that chain, he will be found within and receiving the experiences as himself. In subsequent incidents cleavage is observable, and in late engrams the preclear is found to be observing the action from outside of himself, almost as a disinterested party. This forms the principal primary test for the basic of the basic chain. Another test for basic is “sag.”

In Dianetics, a person recounts the incident after being returned to it. But if he is recounting the incident without experiencing it, it won’t produce any positive and permanent results.

Any engram may be exhausted to a point where it will recede without reaching tone four. Although it is temporarily and momentarily lost to the individual and apparently does not trouble him, that engram which has been exhausted in a chain without the basic having been reached will “sag” or reappear within twenty-four to sixty hours. Basic on any chain will not “sag” but will lift on a number of recountings, rise to tone four and will remain erased. Another test for basic is whether or not it begins to lift with ease. If an engram does not intensify or remain static after many recountings, it can be conceived to be at least a basic on some chain. Locks will lift and disappear without returning as they are not fixed by physical pain. Large numbers of locks can be exhausted bringing an alleviation of the preclear’s difficulties and such a course may occasionally be pursued in the entrance of a case. The discovery and lifting of the basic to which the locks are appended removes the locks automatically.

The Dianetic procedure is all about accessing engramic incidents and recounting them. Upon recounting the engram disappears only when it is experienced and its contents assimilate into the mental matrix. Many a time this does not happen.

These rules and laws even if modified in their statement will be found invariable. Incompetent auditing cannot be excused by the supposed discovery of a special case or exception. A physical derangement must be in the category of actually missing parts of the organism which cause permanent disability, and instances of this are not common.

This Dianetic thesis seems to blame the lack of success in applying the dianetic procedure to incompetent auditing, which does not fully understand these laws.

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Final Comments

KEY WORDS: Laws of Returning

This Dianetic procedure needs to be examined closely if its application does not produce results in the hands of others. Apparently, the author of this thesis is able to produce results where others run into difficulty. In my observation, many difficulties arise because of the violation of the gradient in approaching the engram.

According to the laws of returning, the analytical awareness starts to shut down as one approaches the engram, and the thinking increasingly dramatizes the content of the engram. The person is not aware of this change but the auditor is. The auditor is then required to navigate the auditee through it skillfully.

According to the thesis, the auditor’s dynamic assists the auditee’s dynamic in overcoming the effects of the laws of returning. But in practice, the auditor takes over the awareness of the auditee instead of assisting it. Even the use of E-meter brings awareness to the auditor only. The auditee is simply being told what to do, and he is never in command of himself while approaching the engram. He mechanically obeys either the engram or the auditor.

Only the auditee can handle his aberrations. The auditor can only support, encourage and guide him but he can’t approach and assimilate the engram for the auditee. The only solution is for the auditee to remain in control of his awareness while approaching the engram and assimilating its content. This requires the auditee to overcome the effects of the law of returning. Can he approach and assimilate the contents of the engram without returning?

It is important to remember that Hubbard was an expert hypnotist and he thought in terms of returning. So, he may not have even considered the possibility of neutralizing the short-circuiting of the mental matrix by the engram without returning.

In hypnotism, the hypnotist installs a hypnotic command. That command can be neutralized by recalling the moment that command was installed. Hypnotist can easily do it because he knows when he installed that command. But the situation is very different in life. One suspects that there is a painful incident, which installed an engram in the mind but nothing is known about it. Engram is not like a simple hypnotic command. It has many tentacles reaching into many logic circuits of the mental matrix. Its relationship with the mind is much more complex compared to that of a simple hypnotic command.

The dianetic approach is to attack the source of pain (the engram). It tries to push through the pain to locate and re-experience the engram. It neglects the very many and much finer relationships that need to be straightened out in the process of neutralizing the engram. Thus it violates the principle of gradient. The more the gradient is violated, the more forceful is the reaction of the engram. The laws of returning are simply the result of violating the gradient. There are no such laws in play when the engram is approached on a gradient.

The mindfulness approach allows the engram to unwind itself through free association on its own natural gradient. The auditee simply focuses on the aberration that is bothering him. He examines that aberration in detail. He lets all data that comes up associate non-judgmentally in the context of that aberration. He watches objectively the reactions and even strong emotions that come up. He lets all such reactions run out as they may. He doesn’t interfere even when the awareness seems to attenuate as in falling asleep. These are contents of the engramic node getting released to the mental matrix.

It does not matter what the auditee has done or what has been done to him. He does not guess or search for the contents of the engram. If a phrase is running around in his head he simply focuses on it. He experiences whatever comes up without resisting. He may be supported, encouraged and guided by a mindfulness auditor. But it is the auditee’s dynamic that lies behind this free association. Using the gradient of free association any engram can be reached safely and easily.

The Dianetic thesis seems to blame any lack of success on incompetent auditing. It is noted that a proper procedure would be effective and easy to apply at the same time. Hopefully, the mindfulness auditing approach shall be able to overcome the difficulties that have plagued the dianetic procedure.

The out-gradient in dianetic procedure ends up in the auditor taking over the awareness of the auditee instead of assisting it. This seems to have become ingrained so much so that the auditee is expected to submit to the dictates of the organization delivering auditing. This organization is presently the “Church of Scientology”, which closely monitors all its parishioners and expects them to comply with its “code of ethics”. It keeps them in line through a system of reward and punishment. Anyone who rebels against the control of the Church is declared a “potential trouble source” or a “suppressive person”.

Fortunately, with mindfulness approach one can audit oneself to great improvement. He can then help others get started with their auditing. Only this way can a grass roots movement be started which is up to meeting the demands of the society.

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Reference: DIANETICS: The Original Thesis

This paper presents Chapter 14 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.

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Engram Chains

More than one engramic chain will be found in every aberree. When this person becomes a preclear the dianeticist does well to discover the earliest chain. It is not always possible to do this with accuracy since a preclear is sometimes in such a nervous condition that he cannot be worked on his basic chain but must be alleviated in a greater or lesser degree by the exhaustion of a later and more available chain. This last, however, is not the usual case.

The model of many aberrated nodes in a mental matrix of data elements works much better.

The dianeticist should clearly understand certain working principles and definitions. By an engram is meant a moment of unconsciousness accompanied by physical pain and conceived  antagonism. The basic engram is the earliest engram on an engram chain. Also there may be engrams of the same character and kind on the same driveline as the basic engram of the chain. An engram chain is composed of a basic engram and a series of similar incidents. Engram chains also contain locks which are instances of mental anguish more or less known to the analytical mind. These are often mistaken by the preclear for the cause of his conduct. A true engram is unknown to the conscious computer of the preclear but underlies it as a false datum on which are erected almost equally unknown similar incidents and an enormous number of locks.

From the perspective of the auditee an engram is a physically painful experience that is not assimilated in the mental matrix. It forms an engramic node that corrupts other nodes of the matrix it is linked to.

In order to release an engram chain it is vital and absolutely necessary to discover the basic of that chain. An individual will have more than one engram chain but he has a basic chain. This must be released as soon as possible after auditing is begun on the preclear.

The dianetic theory aims for the “basic of the chain”, which violates the principle of gradient. The mindfulness approach lets the mind unwind without interference at the proper gradient.

When an engram is discovered by the dianeticist, he must examine the aspect of it to determine whether or not it is the basic. Discovering it is not, he must immediately determine an earlier basic, and so forth until he is obviously on the scene of the basic engram.

The mind can do this automatically better than the dianeticist.

There are certain tests which he can apply. A basic engram will rise to laughter, “sag” slightly, and then rise to tone four and vanish. Successive engrams will then erase from that chain with very little work. Almost any engram on an engram chain can be exhausted, but if it is not a basic engram it will recede and vanish at times but will rise in part again when the basic engram has been reached and the preclear is brought forward into its area.

The mind will unwind in the order necessary. No order should be imposed from the outside.

An engram not basic is subject to “sag.” Which is to say that it may be brought to the two point zero (2.0) tone, but after a certain length of time has elapsed— from one to two days—it will be found to have “sagged” and to be, for instance, in a one point one (1.1) tone. It can be successively lifted until it is apparently in a three point zero (3.0) tone, at which point much of its content will disappear. This is reduction.

Any engram chain can be reduced to some degree without reaching the basic but when it has been reached the basic itself and subsequent engrams can be brought rapidly to tone four providing no engrams are skipped on the return up the time track.

When an engram chain has been brought to tone four, it can be considered to have vanished. The preclear can no longer find it on the time track (he may even be unable to recall some of its most painful and disheartening aspects). The mind apparently has been proofed against the data it has contained. A search for an engram chain after it has been exhausted and a tone four has been achieved should, for purposes of auditing, be entirely fruitless.

Engramic node vanishes when its contents are merged with rest of the mental matrix.

Once the basic has been discovered and the engram chain has been brought to tone four the locks will vanish of their own accord. If this does not occur then there is something remaining or the auditor has been too optimistic about the selection of his basic engram for the chain and has not, in reality, discovered it.

All engram chains should be exhausted from a preclear. These may be discovered to lie along the various dynamics but any chain may influence more than one dynamic.

Another type of engram is the cross engram. This is usually a childhood or adult engram which embraces more than one engram chain. The receipt of the cross engram, containing as it does the convergence of two or more engram chains, is often accompanied by a “nervous breakdown” or the sudden insanity of an individual. A cross engram may occur in a severe accident, in prolonged or severe illness under antagonistic circumstances, or a nitrous oxide operation. Cross engrams are very easy to locate but should not be addressed by the dianeticist as such since an enormous amount of work upon them will not exhaust them until the basic and the chains on which the cross engram depends have been brought to tone four.

Post-battle neurasthenia is almost always traceable to the receipt of a cross engram. This must be, of course, an engram in its own right on more than one chain. It is conceivable that it may be so severe that it “breaks” the individual even if it lies on only one chain.

No complications come about when the mind is allowed to freely associate without interference.

There are certain rules the dianeticist may employ to establish the basic engram of a chain. In first entering a case these rules apply as well to the first goal which is the location of the basic engram of the basic chain.

Number one: No engram will lift if the basic of that chain has not been lifted.

Number two: The basic engram will not lift until the basic instant of the basic engram has been reached, which is to say, the first moment of the engram. Ordinarily this is the most obscure.

Number three: If after two or three test recountings of an engram it does not seem to be improving, the auditor should attempt to discover an earlier engram.

Number four: No engram is valid unless accompanied by somatic pain. This may be mild. Incidents which do not contain somatics are either not basic (the chain having been suspended by some such command as “can’t feel” in the basic) or else it may not even be an engram.

The goal is to assimilate all data into the mental matrix. One knows when this goal is being accomplished.

Cases should be entered as near as possible to the basic engram. Then they should be returned to earlier incidents until the basic is discovered.

The running of locks themselves may accomplish some alleviation of a case.

The case is entered with the awareness of the difficulty.

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Final Comments

KEY WORDS: Engram chain, sag, reduction, erasure, cross engram, basic.

The Dianetic theory believes that engrams exist in chains and that the whole chain can be removed rapidly by finding the basic of the chain and removing it. It, therefore, aims at finding the basic of the chain. This gets the dianetic procedure into a lot of difficulties. These difficulties come about because this dianetic procedure violates the principle of gradient.

The Mindfulness model looks at engram as a node that could not be assimilated in the mental matrix. Whenever this engramic node is used as part of any circuit of the mental matrix, it leads to aberration. This generates aberrated nodes around the engramic node. Thus, engramic and other aberrated nodes are networked together, and they do not exist in simple linear chains.

The auditee first decides the difficulty he wants to handle. He then enters his case fully aware of his difficulty. He concentrates on the difficulty while letting the mind freely associate all related data.  No complications arise when the mind is allowed to freely associate without interference. This allows the mind to follow its natural gradient in assimilating the aberrated circuits.

The goal is to assimilate all data into the mental matrix. Aberrated and engramic nodes vanish when their contents are assimilated into rest of the mental matrix. One is fully aware of the progress.

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Reference: DIANETICS: The Original Thesis

This paper presents Chapter 12 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.

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Diagnosis

It is a useful and positive principle that whatever confronts or contests the analytical mind of the preclear will also confront and contest the analytical mind of the auditor. When the auditor is acting as the analytical mind of the preclear, whatever emotion or antagonism is directed towards him is the emotion or antagonism which is directed by the reactive mind toward the preclear’s own analytical mind. If a preclear cannot hear what people are saying in his engrams, he has another engram about “can’t hear.” If he cannot feel anything in his engram, it is because he has an engram about “can’t feel.” If he cannot see, he has an engram about not being able to see, and so forth. If he cannot return, he has an engram about going back, or returning to childhood, or some such thing. If he is doubtful and skeptical about what is happening or what has happened to him, it is because he has an engram about being doubtful and skeptical. If he is antagonistic, his reactive mind contains a great deal of antagonism. If he is self-conscious or embarrassed, it is because his reactive mind contains self-consciousness or embarrassment. If he insists on maintaining his own control, refusing to do what the auditor tells him to do (although he is returned), it is because he has an engram about self-control, and so forth and so on. This is identity thought, and is used in diagnosis.

In the “BODY-MIND-I” model, the “I” is the objective viewpoint, which sees things as they are. The mind puts the filters there. When the auditor cannot understand something about the auditee, then it is the same thing that the auditee cannot understand about himself. That difficulty is being generated by the aberrated nodes of the mental matrix.

The return is the best method of learning the problems of the preclear. Trying to work the preclear into remembrance, hearing, seeing, feeling, going back and forward, going to sleep, awakening, and taking due notice of what he says about the entire process will form a rather complete diagnosis on one who is not insane. Questioning the preclear as to what is wrong with him while returned will elicit replies straight out of his principal engrams. Listening to an endless justification of his actions is both a delay and a waste of time but listening to what he has to say about what he thinks has happened to him or what he is afraid of is of definite value.

Dianetics employs the method of “return”, which is to go back and re-experience an incident. But there is not always a clear cut incident. Therefore, mindfulness employs the method of concentrating on the difficulty while letting the mind freely associate.

Free association is letting the mind associate whatever is there without any interference. No conscious effort is made for the auditee to remember anything. The auditee simply thinks of the difficulty and focuses on it for as long as necessary. The focus can go pretty deep. There is no questioning of the auditee other than that the auditee may briefly summarize the outcome of the free association. The auditee is trained simply to observe and not to justify any outcome.

The insane form and pose a slightly different problem but essentially the same.

It is a clinically established observation that the reactive mind is relatively shallow. Below it lies the basic personality of the individual no matter how “insane” he may be. Therefore, by one means or another, a rational being may be reached within a person, a being which is not aberrated. It is this fact of non-aberration which makes the basic personality a difficult aid in diagnosis. Here however it can be established what the person really wants, what he hopes, what he actually feels. It has been observed that no matter what his raving state, providing his brain structure is normal and complete, the basic personality is entirely sound and sane and will cooperate. After auditing the person will become this strong, competent and able personality.

An insane person is simply too introverted. His attention needs to be extroverted before he can be audited. But this is the first step with any introverted person.

The reactive mind, when unable to exert itself to its aberrated full in the environment of the person, will break the person, or cause him to lose tone. Therefore it is of definite interest to discover what immediately preceded the break of the preclear or what is currently causing him unhappiness. Something is dispersing his dynamics. The probability is that he has a chronic restimulator in his vicinity. Wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, superiors, etc., can be the source of such breaking since they turn the purpose of the reactive mind, which pretends to desire above all else the best interest of the person, back upon the person himself. Thus these sources cause the individual to lower back into the tone of the reactive mind, apathy, or a low tone two.

Diagnosis is isolating the difficulty to focus on. The difficulty may be understood broadly at first whatever is currently causing him unhappiness. As auditing proceeds, this difficulty may be narrowed down to something more specific. When there is a mental breakdown one may isolate the difficulty that preceded the break. There may be persons associated with the difficulty. The free association then includes their personalities.

The problem of the fixed person and the problem of the sympathy engram are both visible in the aberrated individual. The identity thought of the reactive mind has taken some part of the personality of some individual in the current environment and referred it to some part of the personality of an individual in the engramic past. The discovery of this identity is one of the principal problems in auditing. The sympathy engram is of a very specific nature, being the effort of the parent or guardian to be kind to a child who is severely hurt. If that parent or guardian has shown the child antagonism prior to the time of the injury, the adult (preclear) is prone to reactivate the injury in the presence of the identity personality with whom he is now associated. This causes many somatic ills to present themselves in the present. Only the exact words of a sympathy engram will soothe the aberrated personality.

A key problem occurs when a person gets attached to somebody because that person is similar to a personality in his engramic data. Discovering this brings great relief. Another key problem occurs when the engramic data is making a person ill in an effort to gain sympathy from somebody similar to an engramic personality.

There are not many personality types. A human being learns through mimicry. If his own self is found to be too painful he can become another self and very often does. A tone four can become another person at will without being aberrated about it, thus enjoying books and plays by “being” the person portrayed. But an aberrated individual can become part of the engramic cast of his reactive mind and so solve all of his problems in such an aberrated fashion. Aberrated persons are not themselves since they do not possess their own determinism.

As has been stated, those emotions, doubts, worries and problems which confront the auditor when attempting to place the preclear in reverie or to work him in that reverie will lead the auditor into the basic content of the reactive mind.

There are certain definite manifestations which can be suspected and certain routines which follow every case. Every human being has been carried in the womb and every human being has been born. The discovery of the basic engram on each chain is extremely important. Finding the basic engram is like taking the enemy in the flank. There is nothing before it, therefore the end most remote from the adult life of the individual is the end most exposed for the attack of the auditor.

The above is good to know. The mind engages its knowledge in free association as it sees fit. The mind is not consciously directed in any way.

In the basic engram the preclear can see, feel, hear, and freely emote. When he is returned to later incidents, it may be found that he cannot do these things no matter how hard the auditor works to enable him to do so. By pursuing the engramic chain up its chronological sequence, this ability will be restored. Therefore it is necessary first and foremost to locate the basic engram. This may, in some few cases, lie later than birth. In the majority of the cases it will be found to lie at or before birth. No discussion is here entered about the ability of the human mind to remember at such remote periods. It can be stated however that when engramic data does exist, the time track is opened by pain and antagonism at these extreme points and can be contacted and exhausted. It is with the greatest difficulty that the auditor will find the basic engram. It is ordinarily quite painful, and since the scanning mechanism has as its purpose (or one of its purposes) the avoidance of pain, it will not easily reach them. Like the scanning mechanism on a cathode ray tube, the scanners of even a very reduced potential analytical mind sweep over, skipping and not touching the data on the engramic chain. By various means the auditor must then require the scanners to contact that data and force the data back onto the time track where it can be properly exhausted.

In Dianetics procedure one’s primary effort is to find the basic engram by tracing the somatics down the time track, and force its contents into awareness. This is a simplistic model and dangerous. It does not work always, and it does create problems.

In Mindfulness procedure, the mind finds its own best way to assimilate the aberrated nodes back into the mental matrix. The mind is neither forced nor directed in any way. The concentrated focus on the difficulty maintains the general pressure on the mind to keep freely associating to resolve the difficulty. This approach is very safe.

Light prenatals are the best possible approach to a case. When the only prenatal is an extremely heavy one or an attempted abortion (which, by the way, are very common), the auditor must use a great deal of guile. It can be said that the basic engram and the beginning of the actual engram chains is very early, before, near, or during birth, is painful, and will not be easily contacted. In that few preclears have more than a few hundred serious engrams, the task is light when once begun but requires a great deal of imagination and persuasion.

The early Dianetics procedure made guesses and then used lot of cleverness to contact the actual engramic data. This is trial and error that can backfire. No such guile, imagination or cleverness is required in the mindfulness approach. It renders the use of E-meter unnecessary.

A prenatal must always be suspected unless birth, when lifted, rises easily into a tone four. If none of the engrams will rise into a tone four, the auditor would suppose that he has not discovered the basic. There are three kinds of engrams: the precursor, the engram and the follower. By engram here is meant that experience which the auditor has found and is working upon. If it does not seem to be lifting after a few recountings, a precursor (earlier engram) must be suspected and returned to. In this way an earlier basic may be discovered. Blows in the womb, attempted abortions, and birth are the usual basics. Easily the most important are the prenatals.

All this information should just be kept as part of background knowledge. It is not used consciously in mindfulness auditing. This information may or may not be applicable. The missing data could simply be not having connected all the dots. It could be more than just a single basic incident at the bottom of it.

When a child is abnormally afraid of the dark, he probably has a severe engramic experience in prenatal. This prenatal experience will include all the sound data and sensory data of the incident. It is idiotic and identical. The preclear will have somatics. These on the first few recountings will be ordinarily faint and then become more severe as more data is located. The data will finally be in a more or less complete state and the engram will begin to lift, rising up through the various tones. All prenatals are apathy experiences and are therefore serious. Minor taps and discomforts in the womb are of no consequence. A true engram will consist of such a thing as a knitting needle being rammed through the foetus, half of the foetus’ head being badly injured, blows of various kinds bringing about foetal unconsciousness and so forth. Return eventually will find an opening into any period when there has been pain.

Disbeliefs and antagonisms from the preclear on the subject of such a thing as an attempted abortion should be overlooked by the auditor or taken into account as the sign of an existing engram. A case is recalled wherein a girl insisted that if an abortion had ever been attempted on her it should have been successful. Through several sessions, while an attempt was made to lift birth, she continued this assertion until the auditor realized that this was probably a remark made by the abortionist (or the mother) when his efforts failed. As soon as this was suggested to the girl she was able to contact the actual incident. A chronic apathy case under treatment for some years in an institution, she suddenly responded to auditing, brought the abortion to tone four, erased birth to tone four and recovered mentally and physically into a social asset well above normal.

The auditor should continue to suspect prenatals as long as he cannot get later engrams easily into tone four. Once an engramic chain has been lifted at its end nearest to conception, the preclear should begin to release relatively automatically, aided but little by the auditor. The erasure should be in terms of laughter at its optimum. This laughter is the reversing of charges residual in the locks which depended for their fear content or antagonistic content upon the basic engrams.

If a prenatal painful experience is there it will come up automatically in the mindfulness approach.

Abortion attempts are easy to recognize when an auditor has had some experience. The parent who attempted the abortion will, after the child’s birth, likely be a source of anxiety to the individual who seems to require a great deal of affection and attraction from that parent. The individual will be found to be most fond of the parent (or other) who did not aid, or who actually tried to prevent the abortion attempt. At this time abortion attempts are extremely common. When an abortion attempt has been lifted, the engramic chain should easily be brought to the time track and exhausted.

If an abortion attempt painful experience is there it will come up automatically in the mindfulness approach.

Auditing is essentially very simple but it demands precise understanding of the principles involved and imagination and sympathy on the part of the auditor. He must learn to compute engramically—or learn to think with his analytical mind, only for the purposes of auditing others, engramically. His biggest problem is the discovery of the basic of basics. It may elude him for a considerable period of time.

The primary principle that is necessary is to keep the viewpoint objective and to relegate any assumption to the background. As the process of free association may take some time to conclude, a bit of patience is required.

There is, however, preparatory work to do in a case other than the discovery of the basic. Occasionally an entire time track must be rehabilitated in which “do not remember” and “can’t remember” have obscured the track. Later locks can be found and exhausted in the same manner that engrams are exhausted, and rapid scanning methods may be developed in the future for these. The hysteria or fear of the individual can be momentarily allayed one way or the other and the problem of reaching the basic can be entered upon. There are as many types of case as there are cases, but these are the primary fundamentals.

If the auditee is concerned about nothing coming up in a session then he may focus on the difficulty with remembering. The focus on difficulty may thus shift in the mindfulness approach as the situation arises.

An auditor must think his way through every case, taking as his data the constantly reiterated statements of the preclear during auditing, and accumulating experience as to how incidents can be thrust off the time track, burying them from sight by the analytical mind, thus forming a reactive mind to the detriment of the organism.

The Dianetics procedure depends on the ability of the auditor to “compute” the case. That is a great weakness of this procedure. In mindfulness procedure, no such computation is required. Even when one can guess the content of engramic node, such knowledge is simply kept in the background.  

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Final Comments

KEY WORDS: Identity thought, Basic Personality, Sympathy Engram, Valence.

Diagnosis means isolating the difficulty that a person (auditee) is going to focus on in his auditing session. The difficulty may be understood broadly at first as whatever the auditee is unhappy about. As auditing proceeds, this difficulty may be narrowed down to something more specific.

Dianetics assumes that all aberrations arise, ultimately, from a physically painful experience. In its opinion, locating and running that painful incident is the fastest way of curing that person. Therefore, Dianetics employs the method of “return”, or light regression, to make the auditee re-experience an incident that is causing his difficulty. There is, however, not always a clear cut incident to return to.

Mindfulness auditing, on the other hand, employs the method where the auditee focuses on the difficulty while letting the mind freely associate whatever data it finds. The auditee is not made to recall or return to some incident. Instead he simply concentrates on the details of his difficulty. Mind shall automatically associate freely the data available to it.  If there is an incident to come up, it will do so. The auditee is trained to simply observe and not to justify what comes up. This way his focus can go pretty deep.

The auditee will discover details about his difficulty but he is not required to provide them to the counselor (auditor). He may discuss whatever details he wants to as part of further diagnosis. If the auditee is concerned about nothing coming up in a session then he may focus on the difficulty with remembering. The difficulty to be focused on may thus shift in the mindfulness approach as the situation arises.

When there is a mental breakdown one may look at the difficulty that preceded the break. When the auditee is too introverted his attention needs to be extroverted by taking walks, or by changing his environment, before he can avail of an auditing session.

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