Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (67 page)

The consciousness monitor, however, goes out of operation when the curtain of sleep is drawn. And with it there go out of operation the first group of computers, all of which it monitors. The second group of computers, which it also monitors, do not necessarily cease operation at this time. In a light sleep the individual retains these attention units alert. As sleep deepens, however, they go out of operation one by one until in deepest sleep only the lowest group of computers, which are unmonitored, remain in operation.

These unmonitored computers provide the attention for a watchman function, to waken us when peril looms. They also provide creative imagination for the solving of problems while we sleep, and for the fabrication of airy structures in dreams. Less spectacular but equally important is their day-labor of scanning the Standard Memory for relevant data for every daily 261

computation in the moment-by-moment recalculation of the Organism’s position with respect to survival and its next move to further that end. (Survival is here considered a spectrum, from self at one end to all life at the other.)

One trunk is shown entering the attention switchboard which existed but was unknown and unused save as a dream channel before dianetics. It is that from the Reactive Mind, and the Analyzer is unable to connect to it in its normal operation. With outside help, during therapy, however, a large number of units of attention may be directed along this trunk for the recovery of engrams from the Reactive Mind.

D. H. Rogers

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APPENDIX IV

Advice to the Pre-clear

Certain facts should be made known to the pre-clear. It is not vital that he know anything at all about the technique of processing or that he understand dianetics; all this is inherent in him and he will respond and work as desired by the auditor. In short, the auditor need not explain anything except those items listed below.

1.

The pre-clear should take vitamin B1 while in therapy. It requires a certain mental energy to carry through with therapy and B1 is intimately connected with that energy’s generation. If he doesn’t take B1 he may have nightmares now and then. Ten to twenty milligrams a day are sufficient.

2.

The pre-clear can in no way be damaged by dianetic technique. It is not hypnotism in any remote sense of the word; in the process he remains entirely awake and is able to pull himself out of any situation he feels he cannot face.

3.

The auditor is not interested in anything the pre-clear has himself done. The data may be of some aid, of course, but it is not at all vital to a resolution of the case. The auditor is interested in what has been done to not what has been done by the pre-clear.

Hence wild efforts to cover up material in the belief that the auditor will discover something bad in the pre-clear’s life are all wasted, for the auditor doesn’t want to know about it anyway. Further, the pre-clear can save a lot of an auditor’s time by simply going into therapy without large preambles about guilt or sorrows. The auditor will ask for the personal relationships he needs such as attitude toward father and mother, grandparents and friends as well as the current environment. The auditor knows what he wants to know and the pre-clear doesn’t. Therefore, just answer the questions. If the pre-clear is a junior (named after a relative) or if he was raised in a family which spoke some foreign tongue he should volunteer this information immediately. He should also tell the auditor if he has ever had any shock treatment or brain operations. Beyond that, random self-revelation has no use and only wastes time which could be better expended in work.

4.

If the pre-clear has had some therapy such as psycho-analysis, he may tend to carry a

“remembering” habit into dianetic process. Remaining in present time and

“remembering” does no good. Dianetics has no relationship with past mental treatment.

It is entirely mechanistic and works with engineering precision.

5.

The pre-clear sometimes feels a vanity in a knowledge of some study of mental healing.

It will not be of great use to him in dianetics. Arguing about dianetics with the auditor will not accomplish any therapy. If the pre-clear wants to know about dianetics, the auditor can tell him where he can buy a copy of the handbook. The auditor’s time is wasted by endless argument over whether or not this or that is a fact. Entered into actual therapy, only then can the pre-clear understand the validity of dianetics. Without studying or experiencing at least as much as a demonstration run on the time track, the pre-clear can know little about dianetics. Short of knowing, the arguer has no data and all urge to argue thus proceeds from prejudice; there is no substitute for knowledge.

6.

The pre-clear should know that the total process of therapy is a complete recall of his life and complete refiling of engrams (moments of actual “unconsciousness”) as experience and memory. The pre-clear is not being asked to get rid of anything nor is he being asked to believe anything.

7.

The pre-clear should understand that any attitude of antagonism or skepticism or even apathy or a “desire” to neglect his engrams is derived wholly from the engrams themselves and that these dictate his attitudes in a large measure. If he does not like the 263

auditor personally, then the auditor has some counterpart in an engram. Other auditors can be found, but this is not a good enough excuse to shift auditors.

8.

Bombarded by his engrams, the pre-clear is apt to conceive the idea that he talks and acts only from those engrams and that he is never thinking analytically. Repeater technique tends to give this conception. It is not a fact, however, that the pre-clear operates only on engrams. The best and most effective portions of his life, all his rational acts, concerns and conclusions, are analytical. During therapy he has a tendency, at first, to believe everything must be engramic but this is not true. His analytical mind is powerful and active and as therapy progresses he is more and more in command of his actions and words.

9.

At first, in therapy, the pre-clear is apt to introvert markedly. This is a temporary condition, usually, but may extend for some distance into therapy. Gradually he begins to extrovert. Finally he is no longer interested in his engrams, though he may be interested in those of others.

10.

There has long been an incorrect theory that neurosis is the source of mental vigor and ambition. This is emphatically false. If the pre-clear believes that his engrams are of any assistance to him let him go hit his hand hard with a hammer and then argue that he will now be better at his profession because he has a bruised skin. No engram has any value. The engram is a parasite, regardless of its pretension that it aids the individual.

Anything the pre-clear does with engrams he can do far better without engrams. It is true and valid that experience plays a major role in educating a man and determining his ambitions. Engrams are not experience; they are hidden commands. Only when they have been processed by dianetics can their content be properly used in thought and classified as valid experience. Knowledge of the exact content of his engrams makes a man wiser, but until he knows what they contain they can only drive him and hound him with pain and reduce his general health and ability to think.

11.

Once he knows, in the most general sense, that he has engrams, a man can raise his necessity level to a point which will overcome them. He does not have to obey his engrams.

12.

If the pre-clear is being audited by one who is engaging his first case and has lately studied dianetics, no apprehension need be felt. No damage can result, even if a large number of mistakes are made. The brain cannot be damaged by dianetic therapy.

Engrams may be restimulated which contain such a phrase as “Stop it, you are taking my mind away, piece by piece!” or “You will be well as long as I am with you,” but these are just engrams and their actual effect may well have been to make the individual quite ill. Have confidence in your auditor. He will become skilled with practice and the skills of dianetics themselves will carry you through. If he is clever and experienced, your auditor may bring about a quicker clear and a more comfortable passage through therapy. If he is not experienced, you and he may have some interestingly involved times. But no damage can be done.

13.

If the pre-clear finds his auditor becoming angry with him, the pre-clear should refer to the Auditor’s Code. It is there mainly to accelerate therapy and to protect the auditor, but it is of considerable use to the pre-clear who, by every right, should insist that it be observed. The engrams, when the pre-clear is returned to an early place on the time track he follows in therapy, often dictate irrational statements. The auditor should understand this. While engrams give the pre-clear no license to abuse an auditor when the pre-clear is not in session, in actual work the pre-clear should maintain his rights in the code to be treated fairly no matter what he does or says.

14.

The pre-clear should not expect the auditor to shoulder all his burdens. The end of therapy is to make the pre-clear much less a “push-button” machine, pushed around at the whim of the world which uses his aberrations. The sooner the pre-clear asserts his 264

own self-determinism and exercises his power of decision in his own affairs, the faster therapy will advance. Self-determinism comes about automatically. It can be artificially induced by the pre-clear himself who, raising his necessity level to act with entire self-determinism, can meet the end half-way. The auditor is there to audit, not to be an adviser in the pre-clear’s conduct of existence.

15.

If the pre-clear catches himself lying to the auditor, he should know that he is only slowing therapy. If one has pretended war wounds never received or a glittering past, dianetic therapy is no place to carry out the illusion. Such pretenses stem from aberrations and a clear is not responsible for his own errors in the past once he is cleared, though society may for some time attempt to dictate, aberratedly, otherwise.

16.

If the pre-clear is being audited by a marriage partner with whom there have been many quarrels, the way of therapy may be difficult. Either be as forbearing as possible or persuade some one outside the home to audit. Wrangles over therapy between marriage partners markedly slow therapy.

17.

If the pre-clear is a child and is being audited by a parent, the child should be advised to express what he feels in therapy, not argued into different or false attitudes from some mistaken parental idea of respect. The parent is already restimulative to the child, being contained in many of the child’s engrams; it is therefore possible for the parent to reactivate engrams by being overbearing. The child as a pre-clear should have every right of an adult including recourse to the Auditor’s Code.

18.

It is usually worthless for the pre-clear to seek data from relatives. The data is being sought from a source not necessarily unaberrated, with memory occlusions, and which has a personal interest in making everything in the past as creditable as possible. Such a relative may have great power over the pre-clear, being a part of the pre-clear’s engrams. The seeking of data is always an effort to avoid confronting the engrams themselves and use the relative’s account as a by-pass memory. Experience has taught that even when such a relative knows the data and remembers it, some personal interest may be served in delivering a distorted idea to the pre-clear. If the pre-clear wants his data checked by mother or father, be sure that mother or father has inflicted pain on him and is a source of much trouble in the engram bank, no matter what the pre-clear thinks. If the pre-clear wants a confirmation, take it after therapy is completed.

19.

Should the pre-clear discover that anyone is attempting to prevent him from starting or continuing dianetic therapy, the fact should be communicated immediately to the auditor for this is a useful datum.

Anyone attempting to stop an individual from entering therapy either has a use for the aberrations of that individual -- on the “push-button” order -- or has something to hide.

In the former case, a fear may exist that when the individual becomes stronger he cannot be handled easily by the complainant or that he may take revenge upon the complainant for past acts. In this case, it is true that the clear has no puppet strings and the fear is well-grounded. As for revenge, the clear, being free from the fears and commands in his engrams, holds no grudges: his understanding combines with his strength; a person is only a menace as long as he is aberrated and he poses no insane threats when he ceases to be aberrated. When the complainant against the undertaking of therapy fears the disclosure of information, this is the very data which the auditor most needs and which he can obtain through standard therapy. No matter how wonderfully logical are the arguments a wife or a relative may advance against therapy, it has its root in either fear that their control over the patient will be slacked or fear that data exists in the patient’s engram bank which is detrimental to them. There is a further extension of this case: wives with children may have a fear that therapy will eventually be applied to the children, in which case much information might come to light which the husband or society “should never know.” In any case, the aberrations of the person 265

arguing against the undertaking of therapy choose self-interest rather than the welfare of the pre-clear. There is no altruistic motive in any attempt to stop therapy.

20.

The pre-clear should not regard himself as neurotic or insane merely because he wishes to undertake dianetic clearing. The greatest majority of those who will be processed will be “normal” people. The end of dianetic therapy is not to relieve subnormality but to create the optimum individual. Its concern is not with mental derangement but with the creation of mental freedom. Should anyone infer that the pre-clear engages to be cleared because he is “crazy” and that the critic scornfully does not need such a thing, the pre-clear need only point out that one of the ancient tests for insanity was whether or not the person boasted of his sanity. The average person today contains scores of major engrams. The pre-clear need only indictate that he must be the more sane because he is doing something about his engrams and is attempting to gain a more rational plane of existence. Psychiatry and psycho-analysis in specializing in neurosis and psychosis have fostered a public belief that when anyone does anything about his mind he must be neurotic or psychotic. Education is also doing something about the mind and yet none would declare all children in schools were neurotic and psychotic.