When a person finds himself in an environment that makes it difficult for him to reject what he doesn’t like, he is likely to feel very uncomfortable. When this continues, he may become serious, and even neurotic. Getting a person to laugh is always a good remedy because, besides surprise, laughter is rejection. Laughter surprises the person into rejecting, and that is very therapeutic.

The Remedy of Laughter could be entered simply by having the individual predict that a wall would be there in ten seconds, count off ten seconds on his watch, and then ascertain with thoroughness that the wall is still there.

A direct mock up process can be applied to the Remedy of Laughter by having the person mock up alternately himself and others laughing.

The person can also be made simply to stand up and start laughing. He at first will demand to have something to laugh at, but at length will be able to laugh without reason. 

The goal of the process is to regain the ability to laugh without reason. One may run this process simply by using the following two commands.

‘Start laughing.’
‘Keep on laughing.’

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The Excerpt

Here is the full excerpt of this Scientology process from the Book, The Creation of Human Ability by L. Ron Hubbard.

R2-26: REMEDY OF LAUGHTER 

The earliest known psychotherapy consisted of getting a patient to laugh. Laughter is rejection. A preclear being continually inflowed upon by the physical universe at length may find it difficult to reject anything. Getting him to reject something could be made an auditing goal. The best manifestation of this is laughter. Laughter includes both surprise and rejection. The individual is surprised into rejecting. 

In order to laugh, he must have laid aside some of his ability to predict. An individual who is serious has laid aside so much of his ability to predict that he now cannot be surprised into rejection. The anatomy of mystery consists of, in this order, unpredictability, confusion, and chaos covered up because it cannot be tolerated. Therefore, this is also the anatomy of problems. Problems always begin with an unpredictability, deteriorate into a confusion, and then if still unsolved become a mystery which is massed confusion. It will be observed that as a person falls further and further away from the ability to laugh he becomes more and more confused until at last he sees no points in any jokes, he sees only embarrassment when confronted by laughter, and the whole action of laughter itself escapes him. The ability to laugh is rehabilitated in general by Scientology as it advances the ability of the preclear to know – which is to say, predict. 

The Remedy of Laughter could be entered simply by having the individual predict that a wall would be there in ten seconds, count off ten seconds on his watch, and then ascertain with thoroughness that the wall is still there, to establish if the wall is there, then to predict that it will be there in ten seconds, then to count off ten seconds on his watch and ascertain if the wall is still there. By thus bringing solid objects into the realm of prediction, an individual at length comes to a point where he can predict very slowly moving objects. A cheap train and track could be set up for this purpose and the preclear could be led to predict with accuracy the position of engines on the small circular track. However, the preclear can be made to watch automobiles on the street – a process which serves just as well with no such equipment. 

The preclear would then be led to predict the positions of his own body, first by predicting that it was going to be in a certain spot, then moving it there and seeing whether or not it had arrived at that spot. He would then be brought to swing his arm in a circle, predict that it would swing faster, and swing it faster. And thus being led to predict the motion of his body with these simplicities, he could be exercised in making his body go tense and go limp by his command until he was thoroughly certain that he could both predict the tension or relaxation by doing it. Then he could be led to predict the positions of people walking on the street until he felt some security in predicting without exercising physical control. By thus remedying his ability to predict, one brings the preclear up into a tolerance of motion. He is then led to put his attention on one moving object, then on two moving objects at once, and so forth using the processes of spanning attention on moving objects.

A direct mock up process can be applied to the Remedy of Laughter by having the preclear mock up alternately himself and others laughing or by having him mock up an acceptable level of amusement and remedy his havingness with it until he can have people laughing very broadly in his mock-ups. The preclear can also be made simply to stand up and start laughing. He at first will demand to have something to laugh at, but at length will be able to laugh without reason. The goal of the process is contained in the last line – to regain the ability to laugh without reason. 

In this Intensive Procedure only two steps are employed to remedy laughter. The first consists of these commands, ‘Be completely certain that the wall is there’. And when the preclear has become with considerable conversation completely certain that the wall is there, touching it, pushing against it, and so forth, the auditor then says, ‘Sit down, take this (your) watch’, ‘Now predict that the wall will be there ten seconds from now’, ‘Have you done so?’ ‘All right wait ten seconds by your watch’. And when this is done, ‘Is the wall still there?’ And when the preclear has answered, ‘Now make absolutely certain the wall is there’ and the preclear does so by touching it, pushing at it, kicking it. ‘Now make very sure that the wall is there’. And when the preclear very vigorously has done so, ‘Now predict that it will be there in ten seconds’. And when the preclear has done so, the remainder of the commands are given and this is repeated over and over. 

Then the second part of lntensive Procedure’s process of laughter, but only after the preclear has experienced considerable relief and is absolutely sure that he can predict that all parts of the room will be there, not only in ten seconds, but in an hour – although no such timing is used, and only ten seconds of time is employed – ‘Start laughing’. And no matter what the preclear says thereafter, or what arguments he advances, or how many things he asks about, or how many reasons he wants or gives, the auditor merely says (adding words that urge the preclear), ‘Start laughing’. And when the preclear at length does so, no matter how half heartedly, ‘Keep on laughing’. The two commands which are used in addition to words necessary to urge the preclear without giving the preclear any reason whatsoever are, ‘Start laughing’ and ‘Keep on laughing’. 

This process is then done until the preclear can actually enjoy a laugh without any reason whatsoever, without believing that laughing without reason is insane, without feeling self-conscious about laughing, and without needing any boost from the auditor. The auditor in this second part need take no pains to agree with the preclear by laughing. He need not chuckle or smile nor need he even particularly act seriously, his laughter is not needed or used in the process. An auditor can be as serious as he pleases, and indeed, if he wishes to do so, can be even more serious than is usual when running this second step of R2-26. 

In earlier Scientology it was learned that serious preclears would often recover considerable ground simply when they were made to do things without any reason whatsoever. This achievement is much greater when they are made to laugh without any reason.

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