Knowledge is free -- Scientology Grade Chart

Many of you have sent me emails asking "How long does it take and by what process does one go about becoming OT[#]?" Well, here's a guide to the steps that take place and how to get to them.

Pyramid scheme beautifully executed.

It's a rather large image but here is the Official Scientology Grade Chart, how one would go about becoming Tom Cruise-worthy.

We are Anonymous

Scientology Glossary

I will update this as we go on this website because I understand that the documents and articles on this website have a lot of confusing terms (terms that have been made up or altered to fit the view of Scientologist LRon Hubbard) so I will be releasing mutiple "Glossary" like articles. Keep an eye out for these. Here is the first one, keep in mind these are the ways LRH defines the words he uses, I do not subscribe to suck hackery.


ACCESSIBILITY:

The state of being willing to be processed (technical sense in this science).
The state of being willing to have interpersonal relations (social sense). For the individual
himself, accessibility with self means whether or not an individual can recontact
his past experiences or data. A man with a "bad memory" (interposed blocks
between control center and facsimiles) has memories which are not accessible to
him.

ACT:

A stage of processing. Applies solely to the particular process in use at a certain
case level.

ASSESSMENT:

An inventory, an examination, a calculation or evaluation of a case. ASSISTS:

The straight perception by perception running over and over of an incident until
it is desensitized as a facsimile and cannot affect the preclear. The assist is used
immediately after accidents or operations. It takes away shock and most of the
harmful effects of the incident and promotes healing. It is done by starting the individual
at the beginning of the incident, with the first awareness of the incident, just as
though the preclear were living it all the way through again with full perception of
sight, sound, etc., as nearly as they can be obtained. An assist run, for instance, immediately
after a dental operation takes all the shock out of the operation. One concludes
an assist by picking up the auditing as another incident and running through
the auditing and the decision to be audited. An assist saves lives and materially
speeds healing.

AUDITOR:

One who listens and computes. A technician of this science. BROKEN:

Slang used in the wise of "breaking a case", meaning that one breaks the hold
of the preclear on a non-survival facsimile. Used in greater or lesser magnitude such
as "breaking a circuit" or "breaking into a chain" or "breaking a computation". Never
breaking the preclear or his spirit, but breaking what is breaking the preclear.

CENTER OF CONTROL:

The awareness of awareness unit of the mind. This is not part of the brain but
part of the mind, the brain being physiological. The mind has two control centers possible,
by definition, the right and the left. One is an actual, genetic control center, the
other is a sub-control center subservient to the control center.

CLEAR (verb):

The act of desensitizing or releasing a thought impression or a series of impressions
or observations in the past, or a postulate, an emotion, an effort or an entire
facsimile. The preclear either releases his hold on the facsimile (memory) or the
facsimile itself is desensitized. The word is taken from electronic computers or common
office adding machines and describes an action similar to clearing past computations
from the machine.

CLEAR (noun):


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COMPUTING PSYCHOTIC:

One who is running on a circuit, a circuit being a pseudo-personality out of a
facsimile strong enough to dictate to the individual and BE the individual.

DRAMATIZING PSYCHOTIC:

One who dramatizes one type of facsimile only.

DYNAMICS:

The central drives of an individual. They are numbered from one to eight as
follows: 1. Self survival; 2. Survival through children (includes sexual act); 3. Survival
by groups including social and political as well as commercial; 4. Survival through
Mankind as a whole; 5. Survival through Life including any species, vegetable or
animal; 6. Survival through MEST; 7. Survival through theta or the static of Life itself;

8. (Written as infinity). Survival through a Supreme Being. Each individual is surviving
for all eight.
EFFORT:

The physical force manifestation of motion. A sharp effort against an individual
produces pain. A strenuous effort produces discomfort. Effort can be recalled and reexperienced
by the preclear. No preclear below 2.5 should be called upon to use effort
as such as he is incapable of handling it and will stick in it. The essential part of a
painful facsimile is its effort, not its perceptions.

EMOTION:

The catalyst used by the control center to monitor physical action. The relay
system, via glands, interposed between "I" and self and, by thought, others. The main
emotions are happiness in which one has confidence and enjoyment in his goals and
a belief in his control of environment; boredom, in which one has lost confidence and
direction but is not defeated; antagonism wherein one feels his control threatened;
anger wherein one seeks to destroy that which threatens and seeks without good
direction beyond destruction; covert hostility wherein one seeks to destroy while reassuring
his target that he is not so seeking; fear wherein one is catalyzed to flee;
grief in which one recognizes loss; apathy in which one accepts failure on all dynamics
and pretends death. Other emotions are a volume or lack of volume of those
named. Shame or embarrassment are emotions peculiar to groups or interpersonal
relations and are on a level with grief, denoting loss of position in a group. Emotion is
the glandular system parallel of motion and each emotion reflects action to gain or
lose to motion. At a high level one is sending back motion, at a mid level one is holding
motion, at a lower level, motion is sweeping through and over one.

ENVIRONMENT:

The surroundings of the preclear from moment to moment in particular or in
general, including people, pets, mechanical objects, weather, culture, clothing or the
Supreme Being. Anything he perceives or believes he perceives. The objective environment
is the environment everyone agrees is there. The subjective environment is
the environment the individual himself believes is there. They may not agree.


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A facsimile is a memory recording for a finite period of time. It is considered
that memory is a static without wave length, weight, mass or position in space (in
other words, a true static) which yet receives the impression of time, space, energy
and matter. A careful examination of the phenomena of thought and the behavior of
the human mind leads one to this conclusion. The conclusion is itself a postulate
used because it is extremely useful and workable. This is a point of echelon in research,
that a facsimile can be so described. The description is mathematical and an
abstract and may or may not be actual. When a thought recording is so regarded, the
problems of the mind rapidly resolve. Facsimiles are said to be "stored". They act
upon the physical universe switchboard called the brain and nervous and glandular
system to monitor action. They appear to have motion and weight only because motion
and weight are recorded into them. They are not stored in the cells. They impinge
upon the cells. Proof of this matter rests in the fact that an energy which became
a facsimile a long time ago can be re-contacted and is found to be violent on
the contact. Pain is stored as a facsimile. Old pain can be re-contacted. Old pain, in
facsimile form, old emotion in facsimile form, can re-impose itself on present time in
such a wise as to deform or otherwise physically affect the body. You can go back to
the last time you hurt yourself and find there and re-experience the pain of that hurt,
unless you are very occluded. You can recover efforts and exertions you have made
or which have been made against you in the past. Yet the cells themselves, which
have finite life, are long since replaced although the body goes on. Hence the facsimile
theory. The word facsimile is used as bluntly as one uses it in connection with a
drawing of a box top instead of the actual box top. It means a similar article rather
than the article itself. You can recall a memory picture of an elephant or a photograph.
The elephant and the photograph are no longer present. A facsimile of them is
stored in your mind. A facsimile is complete with every perception of the environment
present when that facsimile was made including sight, sound, smell, taste, weight,
joint position and so on through half a hundred perceptions. Just because you cannot
recall motion or these perceptions does not mean they were not recorded fully and in
motion with every perception channel you had at the time. It does mean that you
have interposed a stop between the facsimile and the recall mechanisms of your
control centers. There are facsimiles of everything you have experienced in your entire
lifetime and everything you have imagined.

FIFTEEN (noun):

A designation to denote a finished case. Solely for case recording to designate
a case advanced to current completion. This is a Foundation number system for preclears.
A case is noted on record by the act number to which it has been advanced.

GENETIC:

By line of protoplasm and by facsimiles and by MEST forms the individual has
arrived in the present age from a past beginning. Genetic applies to the protoplasm
line of father and mother to child, grown child to new child and so forth.

LOCK SCANNING:

A process which starts the preclear from a point in the past with which he has
made solid contact up through all similar incidents without verbalization. This is done
over and over, each time trying to start at an earlier incident of the same kind, until


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ADVANCED PROCEDURE AND AXIOMS 56
lates
first. Lock scanning is a standardized drill, started on signal and ended with the
preclear saying he is again in present time. It can be done on any subject. ABOVE

2.0 only.
MEST:

A compound word made up of the first letters of MATTER, ENERGY, SPACE
and TIME. A coined word for the PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. THETA IS NOT CONSID-
ERED AS PART OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE BUT IS NOT CONSIDERED AB-
SOLUTELY AS NOT PART OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE.

PAST POSTULATES:

Decisions or conclusions the preclear has made in the past and to which he is
still subjected in the present. Past postulates are uniformly invalid since they cannot
resolve present environment.

PERCEPTIONS:

By means of physical waves, rays and particles of the physical universe, impressions
of the environment enter through the "sense channels" such as the eyes
and optic nerves, the nose and olfactory nerves; the ears and aural nerves; interbody
nerves for inter-body perceptions, etc., etc. These are all perceptions up to the
instant they record as facsimiles at which moment they become recordings. When
recalled they are perceptions again, being again entered into sense channels from
the recall side. There are over half a hundred separate perceptions all being recorded
at once.

POSTULATE (verb):

To conclude, decide or resolve a problem or to set a pattern for the future or to
nullify a pattern of the past.

POSTULATE (noun):

A conclusion, decision or resolution made by the individual himself on his own
self-determinism on data of the past, known or unknown. The postulate is always
known. It is made upon the evaluation of data by the individual or on impulse without
data. It resolves a problem of the past, decides on problems or observations in the
present or sets a pattern for the future.

PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS:

A term used in common parlance to denote a condition "resulting from a state
of mind." Such illnesses account for about seventy percent of all ills, by popular report.
Technically, in this science, a chronic or continuing painful facsimile to which the
preclear is holding to account for failures. Arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, myopia, astigmatism,
bizarre aches and pains, sinusitis, colds, ulcers, migraine headaches, toothache,
poliomyelitis deformities, fatness, skin malformations are a few of these legion
of chronic somatics. They are traceable to service facsimiles.

PSYCHOTIC:


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ADVANCED PROCEDURE AND AXIOMS 57
chotic
wherein he becomes psychotic for only a few minutes at a time and only occasionally
in certain environments (as in rages or apathies) or he may be a chronic psychotic,
or in a continual disconnection with the future and present. Psychotics who
are dramatically harmful to others are considered dangerous enough to be put away.
Psychotics who are harmful on a less dramatic basis are no less harmful to their environment
and are no less psychotic.

PRECLEAR:

One who has entered processing enroute to becoming a fifteen. RECOVERY:

Recovery of one's own ability to determine one's existence.

RELEASE (verb):

The act of taking the perceptions or effort or effectiveness out of a heavy facsimile
or taking away the preclear's hold on the facsimile.

REPETITIVE STRAIGHT-WIRE:

Attention called to an incident over and over amongst other incidents until it is
de-sensitized. Used on conclusions or incidents which do not easily surrender.

SERVICE FACSIMILE:

A definitely non-survival situation contained in a facsimile which is called into
action by the individual to explain his failures. A service facsimile may be one of an
illness, an injury, an inability. The facsimile begins with a down emotional curve and
ends with an upward emotional curve. Between these it has pain. A service facsimile
IS the pattern which is the chronic "psychosomatic illness." It may contain coughs,
fever, aches, rashes, any manifestation of a non-survival character, mental or physical.
It may even be a suicide effort. It is complete with all perceptions. It has many
similar facsimiles. It has many locks. The possession and use of a service facsimile
distinguishes a Homo sapiens.

SERVICE FACSIMILE CHAIN:

The entire chain of similar incidents which comprise the total repertoire of the
individual who is explaining thus failure and thus seeking support. STRAIGHT-WIRE:

A process of recalling, from present time, with some perception or at least a
concept, a past incident. The name straight-wire derives from the MEST communications
process of connecting two points of a communications system. It is essentially
memory work. It is applied to postulates, evaluations, incidents, scenes, emotions, or
any data which may be in the storage banks of the mind without "sending the preclear"
into the incident itself. It is done with the preclear sitting up, eyes open or shut.
The auditor is very alert. Straight-wire is done rapidly. The preclear is not permitted to
wander or reminisce. He responds to questions on the part of the auditor. MANY
PRECLEARS DISLIKE BEING QUESTIONED. THE AUDITOR MUST THEN FIRST
RESOLVE THE POSTULATES AGAINST BEING QUESTIONED; this would be
called "clearing for broad straight-wire."

TEN:

A case advanced to the point of released service facsimile.


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ADVANCED PROCEDURE AND AXIOMS 58

The mathematical symbol for the static of thought. By THETA is meant the
static itself. By "facsimile" is meant THETA which contains impressions by perception.


THOUGHT:

The facsimiles one has recorded of his various environments and the facsimiles
he has created with his imaginings, their recombination and evaluations and conclusions
for the purpose of determining action or no action or potential action or no
action. THOUGHT is used also to mean a progress treating awareness level recordings
as distinct from non-awareness level recordings.

A NEW SLANT ON LIFE (PART 1)

TABLE OF CONTENTS


IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE HAPPY?.............................................................1
THE TRUE STORY OF SCIENTOLOGY ....................................................3
TWO RULES FOR HAPPY LIVING..........................................................5
WHAT IS THE BASIC MYSTERY?...........................................................7
MAN’S SEARCH FOR HIS SOUL............................................................8
THE REASON WHY.............................................................................9
WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?......................................................................12
THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE.........................................................14
MYTHS OF THE MIND.........................................................................15
HOW TO LIVE WITH CHILDREN............................................................17
ON MARRIAGE..................................................................................19
THE MAN WHO SUCCEEDS..................................................................20
ON THE DEATH OF CONSCIOUSNESS....................................................22
ACCENT ON ABILITY..........................................................................24
HONEST PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS, TOO ...................................................26
ACCEPTANCE LEVEL..........................................................................28
CONFRONTING.................................................................................29
ON BRINGING ORDER........................................................................31
ON HUMAN CHARACTER....................................................................32
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.............................................................34
PLAYING THE GAME..........................................................................35
FREEDOM vs. ENTRAPMENT................................................................36
JUSTICE...........................................................................................39
THE VOCABULARIES OF SCIENCE........................................................41
HOW TO STUDY A SCIENCE.................................................................43
THE HUMAN MIND ............................................................................47
RECORDS OF THE MIND ARE PERMANENT ............................................51
COMMUNICATION............................................................................. 54


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IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE HAPPY?


Is it possible to be happy?

A great many people wonder whether half of us even exist in this modern, rushing
world. Very often an individual can have a million dollars, he can have everything his heart
apparently desires, and is still unhappy. We take the case of somebody who has worked all his
life; he has worked hard and he has raised a big family. He has looked forward to that time in
his life when he, at last, can retire and be happy and be cheerful, and have lots of time to do all
the things he has wanted to do; and then we see him after he has retired—and is he happy? No.
He’s sitting there thinking about the good old days when he was working hard.

Our main problem in life is happiness, but I’ll tell you more in a moment. The world
may or may not be designed to be a happy one. It may not be possible for you to be happy in
this world, and yet nearly all of us have a goal to be happy and cheerful about existence.

You know, very often we look at the world around us and say that nobody could be
happy in this place. We look at the dirty dishes in the sink, and the car needing a coat of paint,
and at the fact that we need a new gas heater, we need a new coat, we need new shoes or we
would just like to have better shoes; and so, how could anyone possibly be happy when
actually he can’t have everything he wants. He is unable to do all the things he’d like to do, and
therefore, this environment doesn’t permit a person to be as happy as he could be. Well, I’ll tell
you a funny thing—a lot of philosophers have said this many, many times—but the truth of the
matter is that all the happiness you ever find lies in you.

You remember when you were maybe five years old, and you went out in the morning
and you looked at the day, and it was a very, very beautiful day, and you looked at the flowers,
and they were very beautiful flowers; twenty-five years later you get up in the morning, you
take a look at the flowers—they are wilted. The day isn’t a happy day. Well, what has
changed? You know they are the same flowers, it’s the same world, something must have
changed. Probably it was you.

Actually a little child derives all of his “how” of life from the grace he puts upon life.
He waves a magic hand and brings all manner of interesting things into being out in the society.
Here is this big, strong brute of a man riding his iron steed, up and down, and boy, he’d like to
be a cop. Yes sir! He would sure like to be a cop; and twenty-five years later he looks at that
cop riding up and down and checks his speedometer and says, “Doggone these cops! “

Well, what is changed here? Has the cop changed? No. Just the attitude toward him.
One’s attitude toward life makes every possible difference in one’s living. You know you don’t
have to study a thousand ancient books to discover that fact. But sometimes it needs to be
pointed out again that fife doesn’t change so much as you.

Once upon a time, perhaps, you were thinking of being married and having a nice
home, and having a nice family; everything would be just fine. The husband would come home
and you would put the dinner on the table and everybody would be happy about the whole
thing; and then you got married and maybe it didn’t quite work out. Somehow or other, he
comes home late and he has had an argument with the boss, and he doesn’t feel well. He
doesn’t want to go to the movies, and he doesn’t see how you have any work to do anyhow—
after all, you sit home all day and do nothing—and you know he doesn’t do any work either.
He disappears out of the house.

He’s gone. Then he comes back later in the evening, and quite an argument could ensue
over this. Actually, both of you work quite hard. Well, what do we do with a condition like
this? Do we just break up the marriage? Or touch a match to the whole house? Or throw the
kids in the garbage can? Or go home to mother? Or what do we do?

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Well, there are many, many things we could do, and the least of them is to take a look
at the environment. You know, just look around and say, “Where am I? What am I doing
here?” And then, once you have found out where you are, why, try to find out how you can
make that a little more habitable. The day when you stop building your own environment,
when you stop building your own surroundings, when you stop waving a magic hand and
gracing everything around you with magic and beauty, things cease to be magical, things cease
to be beautiful.

Well, there are many, many things we could do, and the least of them is to take a look
at the environment. You know, just look around and say, “Where am I? What am I doing
here?” And then, once you have found out where you are, why, try to find out how you can
make that a little more habitable. The day when you stop building your own environment,
when you stop building your own surroundings, when you stop waving a magic hand and
gracing everything around you with magic and beauty, things cease to be magical, things cease
to be beautiful.

And here you have somebody who is happy, who is cheerful, who is strong, who finds
that most things are pleasurable; and what do we discover in this person? We find out that he is
making life, and there is actually a single difference: are you making life or is life making you ?

Carefully go into this, and you will find out that a person has stopped making life
because he himself has decided that life cannot be made. Some failure, some small failure,
maybe not graduating with the same class, or maybe that failure that had to do with not
marrying quite the first man or woman that came along who seemed desirable, or maybe the
failure of having lost a car, or just some minor thing in life started this attitude. A person
looked around one day and said, “Well, I’ve lost,” and after that, life makes him; he doesn’t
make life any more.

Now this would be a very critical situation if nothing could be done about it, but the fact
of the matter is that it is the easiest problem of all the problems man faces—changing himself
and changing the attitudes of those around him. It is very, very easy to change somebody else’s
attitude. Yet you are totally dependent upon other people’s attitudes—somebody’s attitude
toward you may make or break your life. Did it ever occur to you that your home holds
together because of the attitude the other person has toward you? So there are really two
problems here—you would have to change two attitudes. One: your attitude toward somebody
else, and two: their attitude toward you. Well, are there ways to do this? Yes, fortunately, there
are.

For many, many centuries, Man has desired to know how to change the mind and
condition of himself and his fellows. Actually, Man had a cumulative inclination to do this up
to relatively few years ago. But, we are making it a very fast paced world; we are making it a
world where magic is liable to occur at any time, and has.

Man now understands a great many things about the universe he lives in, which he
never understood before. Amongst the things he now understands is the human mind. The
human mind is not an unsolved problem. Nineteenth century psychology didn’t solve the
problem, but that doesn’t mean it has not been solved.

In modern times the most interesting miracles are taking place all across this country
and across other continents of earth. What do these miracles consist of? They consist of people
becoming well when they were ill, incurably ill. They consist of people who were unhappy
becoming happy once more. They consist of abolishing the danger inherent in many of the
illnesses and many of the conditions of Man. Yet the answer has been with Man all the time;
Man has been able to reach out and find this answer, so perhaps Man himself had to change.
Perhaps he had to come up to modern times to find out that the physical universe was not
composed of demons and ghosts. To outlive his superstitions, to outlive the ignorance of his

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forbears. Perhaps he had to do everything, including inventing the atom bomb, before he could
finally find himself.

forbears. Perhaps he had to do everything, including inventing the atom bomb, before he could
finally find himself.

Scientology has made it possible for him to do so.

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THE TRUE STORY OF SCIENTOLOGY

THE TRUE STORY OF SCIENTOLOGY

1. A philosopher develops a philosophy about life and death;
2. People find it interesting;
3. People find it works;
4. People pass it along to others;
5. It grows.
When we examine this extremely accurate and very brief account, we see that there
must be in our civilization some very disturbing elements for anything else to be believed about
Scientology.

These disturbing elements are the Merchants of Chaos. They deal in confusion and
upset. Their daily bread is made by creating chaos. If chaos were to lessen, so would their
incomes.

The politician, the reporter, the psychiatrist with his electric shock machine, the drug
manufacturer, the militarist and arms manufacturer, the police and the undertaker, to name the
leaders of the list, fatten only upon “the dangerous environment”. Even individuals and family
members can be Merchants of Chaos.

It is to their interest to make the environment seem as threatening as possible, for only
then can they profit. Their incomes, force, and power rise in direct ratio to the amount of threat
they can inject into the surroundings of the people. With that threat they can extort revenue,
appropriations, heightened circulation’s and recompense without question. These are the
Merchants of Chaos. If they did not generate it and buy and sell it, they would, they suppose,
be poor.

For instance, we speak loosely of “good press”. Is there any such thing today? Look
over a newspaper. Is there anything good on the front page? Rather, there is murder and
sudden death, disagreement and catastrophe. And even that, bad as it is, is sensationalized to
make it seem worse.

This is the cold blooded manufacture of “a dangerous environment”. People do not
need this news; and if they did, they need the facts, not the upset. But if you hit a person hard
enough, he can be made to give up money. That’s the basic formula of extortion. That’s the
way papers are sold. The impact makes them stick.

A paper has to have chaos and confusion. A “news story” has to have “conflict”, they
say. So there is no good press. There is only bad press about everything. To yearn for “good
press” is foolhardy in a society where the Merchants of Chaos reign.

Look what has to be done to the true story of Scientology in order to “make it a news
story” by modern press standards. Conflict must be injected where there is none. Therefore,
the press has to dream up upset and conflict.

Let us take the first line. How does one make conflict out of it? No. 1, A philosopher
develops a philosophy about life and death.

The Chaos Merchant has to inject one of several possible conflicts here: He is not a
doctor of philosophy, they have to assert. They are never quite bold enough to say it is not a
philosophy. But they can and do go on endlessly, as their purpose compels them, in an effort
to invalidate the identity of the person developing it.

In actual fact, the developer of the philosophy was very well grounded in academic

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subjects and the humanities, probably better grounded in formal philosophy alone than teachers
of philosophy in universities.

subjects and the humanities, probably better grounded in formal philosophy alone than teachers
of philosophy in universities.

Then take the second part of the true story. People find it interesting. It would be very
odd if they didn’t, as everyone asks these questions of himself and looks for the answers to his
own beingness; and the basic truth of the answers is observable in the conclusions of
Scientology.

However, to make this “news” it has to be made disturbing. People are painted as
kidnapped or hypnotized and dragged as unwilling victims up to read the books or listen.

The Chaos Merchant leaves No. 3 v cry thoroughly alone. It is dangerous ground for
him. People find it works. No hint of workability would ever be attached to Scientology by the
press, although there is no doubt in the press mind that it does work.

That’s why it’s dangerous. It calms the environment. So any time spent trying to
convince press that Scientology works is time spent upsetting a reporter.

On No. 4, People pass it along to others, the press feels betrayed. “Nobody should
believe anything they don’t read in the papers. How dare word of mouth exist?” So, to try to
stop people from listening, the Chaos Merchant has to use words like “cult”. That’s “a closed
group”, whereas Scientology is the most open group on Earth to anyone. And they have to
attack organizations and their people to try to keep people out of Scientology.

Now, as for No. 5, It grows, we have the true objection.

As truth goes forward, lies die. The slaughter of lies is an act that takes bread from the
mouth of a Chaos Merchant. Unless he can lie with wild abandon about “how bad it all is”, he
thinks he will starve.

The world simply must not be a better place, according to the Chaos Merchant. If
people were less disturbed, less beaten down by their environment, there would be no new
appropriations for police and armies and big rockets, and there’d be not even pennies for a
screaming, sensational press.

So long as politicians move upward on scandal, police get more pay for more crime,
medicos get fatter on more sickness, there will be Merchants of Chaos. They’re paid for it.

And their threat is the simple story of Scientology. For that is the true story. And
behind its progress, there is a calmer environment in which a man can live and feel better. If
you don’t believe it, just stop reading newspapers for two weeks, and see if you feel better.
Suppose you had all such disturbances handled?

The pity of it is, of course, that even the Merchant of Chaos needs us, not to get fatter,
but just to live himself as a being.

So the true story of Scientology is a simple story.

And too true to be turned aside.

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TWO RULES FOR HAPPY LIVING

TWO RULES FOR HAPPY LIVING
Be able to experience anything.
2. Cause only those things which others can experience easily.
Man has had many golden rules. The Buddhist rule of “Do unto others as you would
have these others do unto you” has been repeated often in other religions. But such golden
rules, while they served to advance man above the animal, resulted in no sure sanity, success,
or happiness. Such a golden rule gives only the cause point or at best, the reflexive effect point.
This is a self-done-to-self thing, and tends to put all on obsessive cause. It gives no thought to
what one does about the things done to one by others not so indoctrinated.

How does one handle the evil things done to him?

It is not told in the Buddhist rule. Many random answers resulted. Amongst them are
the answers of Christian Science (effects on self don’t exist), the answers of early Christians
(become a martyr), the answers of Christian ministers (condemn all sin). Such answers to
effects created on one bring about a somewhat less than sane state of mind—to say nothing of
unhappiness.

After one’s house has burned down and the family cremated, it is no great consolation
to (1) pretend it didn’t happen, (2) liken oneself to Job, or (3) condemn all arsonists.

So long as one fears or suffers from the effect of violence, one will have violence
against him. When one can experience exactly what is being done to one, ah, magic—it does
not happen!

How to be happy in this universe is a problem few prophets or sages have dared to
contemplate directly. We find them “handling” the problem of happiness by assuring us that
man is doomed to suffering. They seek not to tell us how to be happy, but how to endure being
unhappy. Such casual assumption of the impossibility of happiness has led us to ignore any
real examination of ways to be happy. Thus, we have floundered forward toward a negative
goal—get rid of all the unhappiness on Earth and one would have a livable Earth. If one seeks
to get rid of something continually, one admits continually that he cannot confront it—and thus
everyone went down hill. Life became a dwindling spiral of more things we could not
confront. And thus, we went toward blindness and unhappiness.

To be happy, one must be able to confront, which is to say, experience, those things
that are.

Unhappiness is only this: the inability to confront that which is.

Hence, ( 1 ) Be able to experience anything.

The effect side of life deserves great consideration. The self-caused side also deserves
examination.

To create only those effects which others could easily experience gives us a clean new
rule of living. For, if one does this, then what might he do that he must withhold from others?
There is no reason to withhold his own actions or regret them (same thing), if one’s own
actions are easily experienced by others.

This is a sweeping test (and definition) of good conduct—to do only those things which
others can experience.

If you examine your life, you will find you are bothered only by those actions a person

6



did which others were not able to receive. Hence, a person’s life can become a hodge-podge of
violence withheld, which pulls in, then, the violence others caused.

did which others were not able to receive. Hence, a person’s life can become a hodge-podge of
violence withheld, which pulls in, then, the violence others caused.

Pain, misemotion, unconsciousness, insanity, all result from causing things others
could not experience easily. The reach-withhold phenomenon is the basis of all these things.
When one sought to reach in such a way as to make it impossible for another to experience, one
did not reach, then, did he? To “reach” with a gun against a person who is unwilling to be shot
is not to reach the person, but a protest. All bad reaches never reached. So there was no
communication, and the end result was a withhold by the person reaching. This reach-withhold
became at last an inability to reach—therefore, low communication, low reality, lover affinity.
Communication is time environment or situation.

One means of reaching others. So, if one is unable to reach, one’s ability to
communicate will be low; and one’s reality will be low, because if one is unable to
communicate, he won’t really get to know about others; and with knowing little or nothing
about others, one doesn’t have any feeling about them either, thus one’s affinity will be low.
Affinity, reality and communication work together; and if one of these three is high, the other
two will be also; but if one is low, so will the others be low.

All bad acts, then, are those acts which cannot be easily experienced at the target end.

On this definition, let us review our own “bad acts”. Which ones were bad? Only those
that could not be easily experienced by another were bad. Thus, which of society’s favorite bad
acts are bad? Acts of real violence resulting in pain, unconsciousness, insanity and heavy loss
could, at this time, be considered bad. Well, what other acts of yours do you consider “bad”?
The things which you have done which you could not easily, yourself, experience, were bad.
But the things which you have done which you, yourself, could have experienced, had they
been done to you, were not bad. That certainly changes one’s view of things!

There is no need to lead a violent life just to prove one can experience. The idea is not to
prove one can experience, but to regain the ability to experience.

Thus, today, we have two golden rules for happiness:

1.
Be able to experience anything;
and
2.
Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily.
Your reaction to these tells you how far you have yet to go.

And if you achieve these two golden rules, you would be one of the happiest and most
successful people in this universe, for who could rule you with evil?

7



WHAT IS THE BASIC MYSTERY?


In the general study of the world and its affairs, we find out that the only way you can
make a slave—as if anybody would want one—would be to develop a tremendous amount of
mystery about what it’s all about and then develop an overwhelming charge on the mystery
line. Not only develop a mystery, but then sell it real good; sell some bogus answer to the
mystery.

Man is so used to this that, when you come along and put a perfectly good answer in
his hands, why, he drops it like a hot potato, because he knows what all answers are: All
answers are carefully derived from mysteries with bogus answers, and all mysteries are going
to cost you something sooner or later.

The development of the mystery itself stems from interpersonal relationships and Man’s
general conflict with his fellows and his environment, and so on. And the basic mystery is—
who is he? There’s no more basic mystery than that—”who is that fellow over there?” That is
the beginning of individuation, of, not individualism, but individuation, of pulling back from
everybody and saying, “I am me and they are ‘them’, and God knows what they’re up to!”
And then, after a while, the fellow takes it out of the realm of near blasphemy and puts it into
worship. And he says, “Well, God knows what they’re up to and he will protect me.”

So what do we basically have? We basically have a mystery on who the other fellow is.
Now “science” originally meant truth, and now it means research revenue. Science has so far
abandoned the basic mystery, that they think there’s a mystery on what is a floor, what is a
ceiling, what is space. That is really a very cooked-up mystery—because that floor and that
ceiling and that space is what thee and me agreed to put there, and that’s about all it is.

Wherever we have a mystery, we normally have had a disagreement or a
misunderstanding or an out-of-communication-ness. And that’s all there actually is to it,
basically. A fellow had to disagree with whom he was looking at. He knew about it originally
and he didn’t want to know who that fellow was over there. He didn’t want to know anything
about the situation, because he had learned a lesson: If he communicated with it, he would be
proved wrong!

So we had some people in our midst—you amongst them—who would put up a “this”
and say it was a “that”. And then you would get these things twisted somehow or another, and
you’d say, “Why don’t you communicate with this?” and then say, “You communicated with
that.” After a while a fellow says, “Aw, I don’t want to communicate with either one of them.
Dickens with it. Who cares what those things are—I don’t want to know.” And after that, he’d
had it. He said, “I don’t want to know,” and therefore he had a mystery sitting across from him
someplace. And he went so far along this line of not wanting to know that after a while he
conceived that he didn’t know. And then he went from there and said it’s impossible to know.

Wherever Man finds himself deeply instilled, engrossed, surrounded with mystery, he
is actually in conflict with himself and himself alone. That is why processing works. THE
ONLY ABERRATION IS DENIAL OF SELF. Nobody else can do anything to you, but YOU.
That is a horrible state of affairs. You can do something to you, but it requires your postulate,
your agreement or your disagreement, before anything can happen to you. People have to agree
to be ill; they have to agree to be stupid; they have to agree to be in mystery.

People are the victims of their own flinch. They are the victims of their own postulates,
the victims of their own belief that they are inadequate.

An individual has to postulate into existence his own aberration, his own flinch, his
own stupidity, his own lack of confidence, and his own bad luck.

8


MAN’S SEARCH FOR HIS SOUL

MAN’S SEARCH FOR HIS SOUL

All thinkers in all ages have contributed their opinion and considerations to it. No
scientist, no philosopher, no leader has failed to comment upon it. Billions of men have died
for one opinion or another on the subject of this search and no civilization, mighty or poor, in
ancient or in modern times has endured without battle on its account.

The human soul, to the civilized and barbaric alike, has been an endless source of
interest, attention, hate or adoration.

To say that I have found the answer to all riddles of the soul would be inaccurate and
presumptuous. To discount what I have come to know and to fail to make that known after
observing its benefits would be a sin of omission against Man.

After thirty-one years of inquiry and thought and after fifteen years of public activity
wherein I observed the material at work and its results, I can announce that, in the knowledge I
have developed, there must lie the answer to that riddle, to that enigma, to that problem—the
human soul—for under my hands and others, I have seen the best in Man rehabilitated.

From the time since I first made a theta clear, I have been, with some reluctance, out
beyond any realm of the scientific known; and now that I have myself cleared half a hundred,
and auditors I have trained, many times that, I must face the fact that we have reached that
merger point where science and religion meet, and we must now cease to pretend to deal with
material goals alone.

We cannot deal in the realm of the human soul and ignore the fact. Man has too long
pursued this search for its happy culmination here to be muffled by vague and scientific terms.

Religion, not science, has carried this search, this war, through the millennia. Science
has all but swallowed Man with an ideology which denies the soul, a symptom of the failure of
science in that search.

One cannot now play traitor to the Men of God who sought, these ages past, to bring
Man from the darkness.

We, in Scientology, belong in the ranks of the seekers after truth, not in the rearguard
of the makers of the atom bomb.

However, science, too, has had its role in these endeavors; and nuclear physics,
whatever crime it does against Man, may yet be redeemed by having been of aid in finding for
Man the soul of which science had all but deprived him.

No Auditor can easily close his eyes to the results he achieves today or fail to see them
as superior to the materialistic technologies he earlier used. For we can know, with all else we
know, that the human soul, freed, is the only effective therapeutic agent we have. But our
goals, no matter our miracles with bodies today, exceed physical health and better men.

Scientology is the science of knowing how to know. It has taught us that a man IS his
own immortal soul. And it gives us little choice, but to announce to a world, no matter how it
receives it, that nuclear physics and religion have joined hands and that we in Scientology
perform those miracles for which Man, through all his search, has hoped.

The individual may hate God or despise priests. He cannot ignore, however, the
evidence that he is his own soul. Thus we have resolved our riddle and found the answer
simple.

9


THE REASON WHY


Life can best be understood by likening it to a game. Since we are exterior to a great
number of games, we can regard them with a detached eye. If we were exterior to Life instead
of being involved and immersed in the living of it, it would look to us much like games look to
us from our present vantage point.

Despite the amount of suffering, pain, misery, sorrow and travail which can exist in
life, the reason for existence is the same reason as one has to play a game—interest, contest,
activity and possession. The truth of this assertion is established by an observation of the
elements of games and then applying these elements to life itself. When we do this we find
nothing left wanting in the panorama of life.

By game we mean a contest of person against person or team against team. When we
say games we mean such games as baseball, polo, chess or any other such pastime. It may at
one time have struck you as peculiar that men would risk bodily injury in the field of play just
for the sake of “amusement”. So it might strike you as peculiar that people would go on living
or would enter into the “game of life” at the risk of all the sorrow, travail and pain just to have
something to do. Evidently there is no greater curse than total idleness. Of course there is that
condition where a person continues to play a game in which he is no longer interested.

If you will but look about the room and check off items in which you are not interested,
you will discover something remarkable. In a short time you will find that there is nothing in
the room in which you are not interested. You are interested in everything. However,
disinterest itself is one of the mechanisms of play. In order to hide something it is only
necessary to make everyone disinterested in the place where the item is hidden. Disinterest is
not an immediate result of interest which has worn out. Disinterest is a commodity in itself. It is
palpable, it exists.

By studying the elements (factors) of games (contests) we find ourselves in possession
of the elements of life.

Life is a game. A game consists of freedom, barriers and purposes. This is a scientific
fact, not merely an observation.

Freedom exists amongst barriers. A totality of barriers and a totality of freedom alike
are no-game conditions. Each is similarly cruel. Each is similarly purposeless.

Great revolutionary movements fail. They promise unlimited freedom. That is the road
to failure. Only stupid visionaries chant of endless freedom. Only the afraid and the ignorant
speak of and insist upon unlimited barriers.

When the relation between freedom and barriers becomes too unbalanced, an
unhappiness results.

“Freedom from” is all right only so long as there is a place to be free to. An endless
desire for freedom from is a perfect trap, a fear of all things.

Barriers are composed of inhibiting (limiting) ideas, space, energy, masses and time.
Freedom in its entirety would be a total absence of these things—but it would also be a freedom
without thought or action, an unhappy condition of total nothingness.

Fixed on too many barriers, man yearns to be free. But launched suddenly into total
freedom he is purposeless and miserable. He needs a gradient.

There is freedom amongst barriers. If the barriers are known and the freedoms are
known there can be life, living, happiness a game.

10


The restrictions of a government, or a job, give an employee his freedom. Without
known restrictions, an employee is a slave, doomed to the fears of uncertainty in all his actions.

The restrictions of a government, or a job, give an employee his freedom. Without
known restrictions, an employee is a slave, doomed to the fears of uncertainty in all his actions.

1. seem to give endless freedom;
2. seem to give endless barriers;
3. make neither freedom nor barriers certain.
Executive competence, therefore, consists of imposing and enforcing an adequate
balance between their people’s freedom and the unit’s barriers and in being precise and
consistent about those freedoms and barriers. Such an executive, adding only in himself
initiative and purpose, can have a department with initiative and purpose.

An employee, buying and/or insisting upon freedom only, will become a slave.
Knowing the above facts, he must insist upon a workable balance between freedom and
barriers.

There are various states of mind which bring about happiness. That state of mind which
insists only upon freedom can bring about nothing but unhappiness. It would be better to
develop a thought pattern which looked for new ways to be entrapped and things to be trapped
in, than to suffer the eventual total entrapment of dwelling upon freedom only. A man who is
willing to accept restrictions and barriers and is not afraid of them is free. A man who does
nothing but fight restrictions and barriers will usually be trapped.

As it can be seen in any game, purposes become counterpoised. There is a matter of
purpose-counter purpose in almost any game played in a field with two teams. One team has
the idea of reaching the goal of the other, and the other has the idea of reaching the goal of the
first. Their purposes are at war, and this warring of purposes makes a game.

The war of purposes gives us what we call problems. A problem consists of two or
more purposes opposed. It does not matter what problem you face or have faced, the basic
anatomy of that problem is purpose-counter-purpose.

In actual testing in Scientology, it has been discovered that a person begins to suffer
from problems when he does not have enough of them. There is the old saw (maxim) that, if
you want a thing done, give it to a busy man to do. Similarly, if you want a happy associate,
make sure that he is a man who can have lots of problems.

We have the oddity of a high incidence of neurosis in the families of the rich. These
people have very little to do and have very few problems. The basic problems of food, clothing
and shelter are already solved for them. We would suppose then, if it were true that an
individual’s happiness depended only upon his freedom, these people would be happy.
However, they are not happy. What brings about their unhappiness? It is the lack of problems.

An unhappy man is one who is considering continually how to become free. One sees
this in the clerk who is continually trying to avoid work. Although he has a great deal of leisure
time, he is not enjoying any part of it. He is trying to avoid contact with people, objects,
energies and spaces. He eventually becomes trapped in a sort of lethargy. If this man could
merely change his mind and start “worrying” about how he could get more work to do, his
happiness level would increase markedly. One who is plotting continually how to get out of
things will be miserable. One who is plotting how to get into things has a much better chance of
becoming happy.

There is, of course, the matter of being forced to play games in which one has no
interest—a war into which one is drafted is an excellent example of this. One is not interested in
the purposes of the war and yet one finds himself fighting it. Thus there must be an additional

11



element and this element is “the power of choice”.

element and this element is “the power of choice”.

These four elements, freedom, barriers, purposes and power of choice, are the guiding
elements of life. There are only two factors above these and both of them are related to these.
The first is the ability to create, with of course its negative, the ability to uncreate, and the
second is the ability to make a postulate (to consider, to say a thing and have it be true). This,
then, is the broad picture of life, and these elements are used in its understanding, in bringing
life into focus and in making it less confusing.

12



WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?


Knowledge is certainty; knowledge is not data. Knowingness itself is certainty. Sanity
is certainty, providing only that that certainty does not fall beyond the conviction of another
when he views it.

To obtain a certainty one must be able to observe. But what is the level of certainty
required? And what is the level of observation required for a certainty or a knowledge to exist?

If a man can stand before a tree and by sight, touch or other perception know that he is
confronting a tree and be able to perceive its form and be quite sure he is confronting a tree, we
have the level of certainty required. If the man will not look at the tree or, although it is
observably a tree to others, if he discovers it to be a blade of grass or a sun, then he is below
the level of certainty required. Some other person helpfully inclined would have to direct his
perception to the tree until the man perceived without duress that it was indeed a tree he
confronted. That is the only level of certainty required in order to qualify as knowledge, for
knowledge is observation and is given to those who would look.

In order to obtain knowledge and certainty, it is necessary to be able to observe, in fact,
three universes in which there could be trees. The first of these is one’s own universe; one
should be able to create for his own observation in its total form for total perception, a tree. The
second universe would be the material universe, which is the universe of matter, energy, space
and time and is the common meeting ground of all of us. The third universe is actually a class
of universes, which could be called “the other fellow’s universe”, for he and all the class of
“other fellows” have universes of their own.

A doctor, for instance, may seem entirely certain of the cause of some disease, yet it
depends upon the doctor’s certainty for the layman to accept that cause of the disease. That
penicillin cures certain things is a certainty to the doctor even when penicillin suddenly and
inexplicably fails to cure something. Any inexplicable failure introduces an uncertainty, which
thereafter removes the subject from the realm of an easily obtained certainty.

We have here, then, a parallel between certainty and sanity.

The less certain the individual on any subject, the less sane he could be said to be upon
that subject; the less certain he is of what he views in the material universe, what he views in
his own or the other fellow’s universe, the less sane he could be said to be.

The road to sanity is demonstrably the road to increasing certainty. Starting at any level,
it is only necessary to obtain a fair degree of certainty on the material universe to improve
considerably one’s beingness. Above that, one obtains some certainty of his own universe and
some certainty of the other fellow’s universe.

Certainty, then, is clarity of observation. Of course, above this, vitally so, is certainty
in creation. Here is the artist, here is the master, here is the very great spirit.

As one advances he discovers that what he first perceived as a certainty can be
considerably improved. Thus we have certainty as a gradient scale. It is not an absolute, but it
is defined as the certainty that one perceives or the certainty that one creates what one perceives
or the certainty that there is perception. Sanity and perception, certainty and perception,
knowledge and observation, are then all of a kind, and amongst them we have sanity.

The road into uncertainty is the road toward psychosomatic illness, doubts, anxieties,
fears, worries and vanishing awareness. As awareness is decreased, so does certainty
decrease.

It is very puzzling to people at higher levels of awareness why people behave toward

13



them as they do; such higher level people have not realized that they are not seen, much less
understood. People at low levels of awareness do not observe, but substitute for observation
preconceptions, evaluation and suppositions, and even physical pain by which to attain their
certainties.

them as they do; such higher level people have not realized that they are not seen, much less
understood. People at low levels of awareness do not observe, but substitute for observation
preconceptions, evaluation and suppositions, and even physical pain by which to attain their
certainties.

Certainty delivered by blow and punishment is a non-self-determined certainty. It is
productive of stimulus-response behavior. At a given stimulus a dog who has been beaten, for
instance, will react invariably, providing he has been sufficiently beaten, but if he has been
beaten too much, the stimulus will result only in confused bewilderment. Thus certainty
delivered by blows, by applied force, eventually brings about a certainty as absolute as one
could desire—total unawareness. Unconsciousness itself is a certainty which is sought by
many individuals who have failed repeatedly to reach any high level of awareness certainty.
These people then desire an unawareness certainty. So it seems that the thirst for certainty can
lead one into oblivion if one seeks it as an effect.

An uncertainty is the product of two certainties. One of these is a conviction, whether
arrived at by observation (causative) or by a blow (effected). The other is a negative certainty.
One can be sure that something is and one can be sure that something is not. He can be sure
that there is something, no matter what it is, present and that there is nothing present. These
two certainties commingling create a condition of uncertainty known as “maybe”. A “maybe”
continues to be held in suspense in an individual’s mind simply because he cannot decide
whether it is nothing or something. He grasps and holds the certainties each time he has been
given evidence or has made the decision that it is a somethingness and each time he has come to
suppose that it is a nothingness. Where these two certainties of something and nothing are
concerned with and can vitally influence one’s continuance in a state of beingness, or where
one merely supposes they can influence such a state of beingness, a condition of anxiety arises.
Thus anxiety, indecision, uncertainty, a state of “maybe” can exist only in the presence of poor
observation or the inability to observe.

Such a state can be remedied. One merely causes the individual to observe in terms of
the three universes.

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THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE

THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE

These three conditions comprise life.

They are BE, DO and HAVE.

The condition of BEING is defined as the assumption of a category of identity. It could
be said to be the role in a game, and an example of beingness could be one’s own name.
Another example would be one’s profession. Another example would be one’s physical
characteristics. Each or all of these things could be called one’s beingness. Beingness is
assumed by oneself or given to one’s self or is attained, for example, in the playing of a game,
each player having his own beingness.

The second condition of existence is DOING. By doing we mean action, function,
accomplishment, the attainment of goals, the fulfilling of purpose, or any change of position in
space.

The third condition is HAVINGNESS. By havingness, we mean owning, possessing,
being capable of commanding, positioning, taking charge of objects, energies or spaces.

The essential definition of having is to be able to touch or permeate or to direct the
disposition of.

The game of life demands that one assume a beingness in order to accomplish a
doingness in the direction of havingness.

These three conditions are given in an order of seniority where life is concerned. The
ability to be is more important than the ability to do. The ability to do is more important than the
ability to have. In most people all three conditions are sufficiently confused that they are best
understood in reverse order. When one has clarified the idea of possession or havingness, one
can then proceed to clarify doingness for general activity, and when this is done one
understands beingness or identity.

It is an essential to a successful existence that each of these three conditions be clarified
and understood. The ability to assume or to grant beingness is probably the highest of human
virtues. It is even more important to be able to permit other people to have beingness than to be
able oneself to assume it.

15



MYTHS OF THE MIND


The curse of the past has been a pretense of knowledge. We’ve had a worship of the
fable. We have had prayers being sent up to a myth. And man hasn’t been looking at all.

We in this modern age of science have not developed out of the field of humanities
anything comparable to a scientific observation of the mind. The humanities—psychology,
sociology, criminology and the various branching studies of the social sciences in general—can
be said at this time and place to have failed.

Imagining that one can see is a condition worse than being unable to see. The
humanities imagined too many things to see. They never cared to look. And so they have
failed.

Scientology tells you quite adequately that there is an enormous Valhalla mixed up with
Pluto’s realm, mixed up with fairy tales, mixed up with Menninger’s work, lying all over
below the level of truth. The truth is a simple thing that anybody could see. Why don’t they see
it? Because they live in this gorgeous wonderland which isn’t and never will be.

Let’s go into wonderland. The wonderland of syllables, the wonderland beneath the
earth of never never. We know it as dispersal. An individual looks at something and it flashes
back and he can no longer look in that direction. It kicks him in the teeth. So he mustn’t look
that way. He must look somewhere else. And he eventually learns very well not to observe
anything.

That is the exact mechanics of how a wonderland of pretended information, which
became the social sciences, was created. The individual couldn’t confront man, so he turned
around and developed a theory about man.

There are a lot of imaginary and legendary beings and beasts just like there were in the
dark ages. Take the way the ancient mariners kept people from trading with the American
Coast. Every mariner of Columbus’ day believed that you just sailed so far then fell off the
edge and there were terrific monsters and beasts who would drown you if you sailed beyond
the sight of land.

A great many beasts had been invented to debar careless voyaging into somebody else’s
hunting preserves.

Now I’m not going to tell you that the field of the mind has been only inhabited by
imaginary beings, but something of this order is done by the fellow who invents tremendous
nomenclature of the brain or bone structure and then says “you have to know all these names
before you can know anything about the mind” and then says “each one of these parts of the
brain has a specific function.” And adds “nobody should tamper with the mind because it
bites.”

I don’t say that that is the same thing the Spanish sailor did with the sea in order to keep
guys like Columbus from discovering things. I don’t say that for a moment. I merely insist
upon it.

All a person has to do is look—right where he is—and he will see something about the
mind. But if he’s been told it’s very dangerous to fool with the mind and he doesn’t know that
those raging sea beasts are really dummies to keep fishing preserves, why, he says, “Well, I’d
better not look. I’d better go blind. “

Through the years I learned that they were supposed to do things with the mind across
this basic premise—that IQ. cannot change and personality characteristics are unalterable. This
is a defeatism.

16


Now, Scientology is defined as knowing how to know. But it could be better defined
as “summated and organized information about you”. It’s everything that has been known
about you for 2500 years at least. But it is summated so it is communicable, so that it is
applicable and so that it gets some definite results. And way over and above all these other
things it is capable of changes. It can create changes for the better, and it can make things look
and act better.

Now, Scientology is defined as knowing how to know. But it could be better defined
as “summated and organized information about you”. It’s everything that has been known
about you for 2500 years at least. But it is summated so it is communicable, so that it is
applicable and so that it gets some definite results. And way over and above all these other
things it is capable of changes. It can create changes for the better, and it can make things look
and act better.

Man, before he gets up and looks to find where he is, before he starts to look in the
proper direction, discovers he’s blind. Then he says, “Hey, wait a minute,” and takes the veil
off his eyes, takes a look—and has the tendency to keep diving into complexities.

So there is only one continuing stress in Scientology and that is greater simplicity, and
that means greater communication. By involvement in a complexity we create a mystery. We
sink man into a priesthood, a cult.

The simplicity of observation, the simplicity of communication itself and only itself is
functional and will take man from the bottom to the top. And the only thing I am trying to teach
you is to look.


(PART 2) (PART 3)

A NEW SLANT ON LIFE (PART 2)

HOW TO LIVE WITH CHILDREN


An adult has certain rights around children which the children and modern adults rather
tend to ignore. A good, stable adult with love and tolerance in his heart is about the best therapy
a child can have.

The main consideration in raising children is the problem of training them without
breaking them. You want to raise your child in such a way that you don’t have to control him,
so that he will be in full possession of himself at all times. Upon that depends his good
behavior, his health, his sanity.

Children are not dogs. They can’t be trained as dogs are trained. They are not
controllable items. They are, and let’s not overlook the point, men and women. A child is not a
special species of animal distinct from Man. A child is a man or a woman who has not attained
full growth.

Any law which applies to the behavior of men and women applies to children.

How would you like to be pulled and hauled and ordered about and restrained from
doing whatever you wanted to do? You’d resent it. The only reason a child “doesn’t” resent it
is because he’s small. You’d half murder somebody who treated you, an adult, with the orders,
contradiction and disrespect given to the average child. The child doesn’t strike back because he
isn’t big enough. He gets your floor muddy, interrupts your nap, destroys the peace of the
home instead. If he had equality with you in the matter of rights, he’d not ask this “revenge”.
This “revenge” is standard child behavior.

A child has a right to his self-determinism. You say that if he is not restrained from
pulling things down on himself, running into the road, etc., etc., he’ll be hurt. What are you,
as an adult, doing to make that child live in rooms or an environment where he can be hurt? The
fault is yours, not his, if he breaks things.

The sweetness and love of a child is preserved only so long as he can exert his own
self-determinism. You interrupt that and, to a degree, you interrupt his life.

There are only two reasons why a child’s right to decide for himself has to be
interrupted—the fragility and danger of his environment and you, for you work out on him the
things that were done to you, regardless of what you think.

When you give a child something, it’s his. It’s not still yours. Clothes, toys, quarters,
what he has been given, must remain under his exclusive control. So he tears up his shirt,
wrecks his bed, breaks his fire engine. It’s none of your business. How would you like to
have somebody give you a Christmas present and then tell you, day after day thereafter, what
you are to do with it, and even punish you if you failed to care for it the way the donor wishes?
You’d wreck that donor and ruin that present. You know you would. The child wrecks your
nerves when you do it to him. That’s revenge. He cries. He pesters you. He breaks your
things. He “accidentally” spills his milk. And he wrecks, on purpose, the possession about
which he is so often cautioned. Why? Because he is fighting for his own self-determinism, his
own right to own and make his weight felt on his environment. This “possession” is another
channel by which he can be controlled. So he has to fight the possession and the controller.

In raising your child, you must avoid “training” him into a social animal. Your child
begins by being more sociable, more dignified than you are. In a relatively short time, the
treatment he gets so checks him that he revolts. This revolt can be intensified until he is a terror
to have around. He will be noisy, thoughtless, careless of possessions, unclean— anything, in
short, which will annoy you. Train him, control him and you’ll lose his love. You’ve lost the
child forever that you seek to control and own.

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Another thing is the matter of contribution. You have no right to deny your child the
right to contribute. A human being feels able and competent only so long as he is permitted to
contribute as much as, or more than he has contributed to him.

Another thing is the matter of contribution. You have no right to deny your child the
right to contribute. A human being feels able and competent only so long as he is permitted to
contribute as much as, or more than he has contributed to him.

Permit a child to sit on your lap. He’ll sit there, contented. Now put your arms around
him and constrain him to sit there. Do this, even though he wasn’t even trying to leave.
Instantly he’ll squirm. He’ll fight to get away from you. He’ll get angry. He’ll cry. Recall
now, he was happy before you started to hold him. (You should actually make this
experiment.)

Your efforts to mold, train, control this child in general react on him exactly like trying
to hold him on your lap.

Of course, you will have difficulty if this child of yours has already been trained,
controlled, ordered about, denied his own possessions. In mid-flight, you change your tactics.
You try to give him his freedom. He’s so suspicious of you he will have a terrible time trying
to adjust. The transition period will be difficult. But, at the end of it, you’ll have a
well-ordered, sociable child, thoughtful of you and, very important to you, a child who loves
you.

The child who is under constraint, shepherded, handled, controlled, has a very bad
anxiety postulated. His parents are survival entities. They mean food, clothing, shelter,
affection. This means he wants to be near them. He wants to love them, naturally, being their
child.

But on the other hand, his parents are non-survival entities. His whole being and life
depend upon his rights to use his own decision about his movements and his possessions and
his body. Parents seek to interrupt this out of the mistaken idea that a child is an idiot who
won’t learn unless “controlled”. So he has to fight shy, to fight against, to annoy and to harass
an enemy.

Here is anxiety. “I love them dearly. I also need them. But they mean an interruption of
my ability, my mind, my potential life. What am I going to do about my parents? I can’t live
with them. I can’t live without them. Oh, dear, oh, dear!” There he sits in his rompers running
this problem through his head. That problem, that anxiety, will be with him for eighteen years,
more or less. And it will half wreck his life.

Freedom for the child means freedom for you.

Abandoning the possessions of the child to their fate means eventual safety for the
child’s possessions.

What terrible will power is demanded of a parent not to give constant streams of
directions to a child. But it has to be done, if you want a well, a happy, a careful, a beautiful,
an intelligent child!

The child has a duty toward you. He has to be able to take care of you, not an illusion
that he is, but actually. And you have to have the patience to allow yourself to be cared for
sloppily until, by sheer experience, itself—not by your directions—he learns how to do it well.
Care for the child?—nonsense! He has probably got a better grasp of immediate situations than
you have.

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ON MARRIAGE


Communication is the root of marital success from which a strong union can grow, and
non-communication is the rock on which the ship will bash out her keel.

In the first place, men and women aren’t too careful “on whom they up and marry”. In
the absence of any basic training about neurosis, psychosis, or how to judge a good cook or a
good wage-earner, that tricky, treacherous and not always easy-to-identify thing called “love”
is the sole guiding factor in the selection of mates. It is too much to expect of a society above
the level of ants to be entirely practical about an institution as basically impractical as marriage.
Thus, it is not amazing that the mis-selection of partners goes on with such abandon.

There are ways, however, not only to select a marriage partner, but also to guarantee
the continuation of that marriage, and these ways are simple. They depend uniformly upon
communication.

There should be some parity of intellect and sanity between a husband and wife for
them to have a successful marriage. In Western culture, it is expected that the women shall have
some command of the humanities and sciences. It is easy to establish the educational
background of a potential marriage partner; it is not so easy to gauge their capability regarding
sex, family or children, or their sanity.

In the past, efforts were made to establish sanity with ink-blots, square blocks and tests
with marbles to find out if anybody had lost any. The resulting figures had to be personally
interpreted with a crystal ball and then re-interpreted for application.

In Scientology, there is a test for sanity and comparative sanity which is so simple that
anyone can apply it. What is the “communication lag” of the individual?—When asked a
question, how long does it take him to answer? When a remark is addressed to him, how long
does it take for him to register and return? The fast answer tells of the fast mind and the sane
mind, providing the answer is a sequitur; the slow answer tells of down-scale. Marital partners
who have the same communication lag will get along; where one partner is fast and one is
slow, the situation will become unbearable to the fast partner and miserable to the slow one.

The repair of a marriage which is going on the rocks does not always require the
auditing of the marriage partners. It may be that another family factor is in the scene. This may
be in the person of a relative, such as the mother-in-law. How does one solve this factor
without using a shotgun? This, again, is simple. The mother-in-law, if there is trouble in the
family, is responsible for cutting communication or inverting communication. One or the other
of the partners, then, is cut off the communication channel on which he belongs. He senses this
and objects strenuously to it.

Jealousy is the largest factor in breaking up marriages. Jealousy comes about because
of the insecurity of the jealous person, and the jealousy may or may not have foundation. This
person is afraid of hidden communication lines and will do anything to try to uncover them.
This acts upon the other partner to make him feel that his communication lines are being cut; for
he thinks himself entitled to have open communication lines, whereas his marital partner insists
that he shut many of them. The resultant rows are violent, as represented by the fact that, where
jealousy exists in a profession such as acting, insurance companies will not issue policies —the
suicide rate is too high.

The subject of marriage could not be covered in many chapters, but here is given the
basic clue to a successful marriage—Communicate !

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THE MAN WHO SUCCEEDS

THE MAN WHO SUCCEEDS

Jobs are not held consistently and in actuality by flukes of fate or fortune. Those who
depend upon luck generally experience bad luck. The ability to hold a job depends in the main
upon ability. One must be able to control his work and must be able to be controlled in doing
his work. One must be able, as well, to leave certain areas uncontrolled. One’s intelligence is
directly related to his ability. There is no such thing as being too smart. But there is such a
thing as being too stupid.

But one may be both able and intelligent without succeeding. A vital part of success is
the ability to handle and control, not only one’s tools of the trade, but the people with whom
one is surrounded. In order to do this, one must be capable of a very high level of affinity, he
must be able to tolerate massive realities and he must, as well, be able to give and receive
communication.

The ingredients of success are then: first, an ability to confront work with joy and not
horror; a wish to do work for its own sake, not because one “has to have a paycheck”. One
must be able to work without driving oneself or experiencing deep depths of exhaustion. If one
experiences these things, there is something wrong with him. There is some element in his
environment that he should be controlling that he isn’t controlling, or his accumulated injuries
are such as to make him shy away from all people and masses with whom he should be in
intimate contact.

The ingredients of successful work are: training and experience in the subject being
addressed, good general intelligence and ability, a capability of high affinity, a tolerance of
reality, and the ability to communicate and receive ideas. Given these things there is left only a
slim chance of failure. Given these things a man can ignore all of the accidents of birth,
marriage or fortune, for birth, marriage and fortune are not capable of placing these necessary
ingredients in one’s hands. One could have all the money in the world and yet be unable to
perform an hour’s honest labor. Such a man would be a miserably unhappy one.

The person who studiously avoids work usually works far longer and far harder than
the man who pleasantly confronts it and does it. Men who cannot work are not happy men.

Work is the stable datum of this society. Without something to do there is nothing for
which to live. A man who cannot work is as good as dead and usually prefers death and works
to achieve it.

The mysteries of life are not today, with Scientology, very mysterious. Mystery is not a
needful ingredient. Only the very aberrated man desires to have vast secrets held away from
him. Scientology has slashed through many of the complexities which have been erected for
men and has bared the core of these problems. Scientology for the first time in man’s history
can predictably raise intelligence, increase ability, bring about a return of the ability to play a
game, and permit man to escape from the dwindling spiral of his own disabilities. Therefore
work itself can become a game, a pleasant and happy thing.

There is one thing which has been learned in Scientology which is very important to the
state of mind of the workman. One often feels in this society that he is working for the
immediate paycheck and that he does not gain for the whole society anything of any
importance. He does not know several things. One of these is how few good workmen are. On
the level of executives, it is interesting to note how precious any large company finds a man
who can handle and control jobs and men. Such people are rare. All the empty space in the
structure of this workaday world is at the top.

And there is another thing which is quite important, and that is the fact that the world

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today has been led to believe, by mental philosophies calculated to betray them, that when one
is dead it is all over and done with and that one has no further responsibility for anything. It is
highly doubtful if this is true. One inherits tomorrow what he died out of yesterday.

today has been led to believe, by mental philosophies calculated to betray them, that when one
is dead it is all over and done with and that one has no further responsibility for anything. It is
highly doubtful if this is true. One inherits tomorrow what he died out of yesterday.

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ON THE DEATH OF CONSCIOUSNESS


Where does one cease to Survive and begin to Succumb? The point of demarcation is
not death as we know it. It is marked by what one might call the death of the consciousness of
the individual.

Man’s greatest weapon is his reason. Lacking the teeth, the armor-plated hide, the
claws of so many other life forms, Man has relied upon his ability to reason in order to further
himself in his survival.

The selection of the ability to think as a chief weapon is a fortunate one. It has awarded
Man the kingdom of Earth. Reason is an excellent weapon. The animal with his teeth, with his
armor-plated hide, with his long claws, is fixed with weapons he cannot alter. He cannot adjust
to a changing environment. And it is terribly important to survival to change when the
environment changes. Every extinct species became extinct because it could not change to
control a new environment. Reason remedies this failure to a marked extent. For Man can
invent new tools and new weapons and a whole new environment. Reason permits him to
change to fit new situations. Reason keeps him in control of new environments.

Any animal that simply adjusts itself to match its environment is doomed. Environments
change rapidly. Animals that can control and change the environment have the best chance of
survival.

The only way you can organize a collective state is to convince men that they must
adjust and adapt themselves, like animals, to a constant environment. The people must be
deprived of the right to control, as individuals, their environment. Then they can be regimented
and herded into groups. They become owned, not owners. Reason and the right to reason must
be taken from them, for the very center of reason is the right to make up one’s own mind about
one’s environment.

The elements fight Man and man fights man. The primary target of the enemies of Man
or a man is his right and ability to reason. The crude and blundering forces of the elements,
storms, cold and night bear down against, challenge and then, mayhap, crush the Reason as
well as the body.

But just as unconsciousness always precedes death, even by instants, so does the death
of Reason precede the death of the organism. And this action may happen in a long span of
time, even half a lifetime, even more.

Have you watched the high alertness of a young man breasting the forces which oppose
life? And watched another in old age? You will find that what has suffered has been his ability
to Reason. He has gained hard-won experience and on this experience he seeks, from middle
age on, to travel. It is a truism that youth thinks fast on little experience. And that age thinks
slowly on much. The Reason of youth is very far from always right, for youth is attempting to
reason without adequate data.

Suppose we had a man who had retained all his ability to reason and yet had a great deal
of experience. Suppose our gray-beards could think with all the enthusiasm and vitality of
youth and yet had all their experience as well. Age says to youth, “You have no experience!”
Youth says to age, “You have no vision; you will not accept or even examine new ideas!”
Obviously, an ideal arrangement would be for one to have the experience of age and the vitality
and vision of youth.

You may have said to yourself, “With all my experience now, what wouldn’t I give for
some of the enthusiasm I had once.” Or perhaps, you have excused it all by saying you have
“lost your illusions”. But you are not sure that they were illusions. Are brightness in life, quick
enthusiasm, a desire and will to live, a belief in destiny, are these things illusions? Or are they

23



symptoms of the very stuff of which vital life is made? And isn’t their decline a symptom of
death?

symptoms of the very stuff of which vital life is made? And isn’t their decline a symptom of
death?

Suppose you could wipe out of your life all the pain, physical and otherwise, which
you have accumulated. Would it be so terrible to have to part with a broken heart or a
psychosomatic illness, with fears and anxieties and dreads?

Suppose a man had a chance again, with all he knows, to look life and the Universe in
the eye again and say it could be whipped. Do you recall a day, when you were younger, and
you woke to find bright dew sparkling on the grass, the leaves, to find the golden sun bright
upon a happy world? Do you recall how beautiful and fine it once was? The first sweet kiss?
The warmth of true friendship? The intimacy of a moonlight ride? What made it become
otherwise than a brilliant world?

The consciousness of the world around one is not an absolute thing. One can be more
conscious of color and brightness and joy at one time of life than at another. One can more
easily feel the brilliant reality of things in youth than in age. And isn’t this something like a
decline of consciousness, of awareness?

What is it that makes us less aware of the brilliance of the world around us? Has the
world changed? No, for each new generation sees the glamour and the glory, the vitality of
life—the same life that age may see as dull, at best. The individual changes. And what makes
him change? Is it a decay of his glands and sinews? Hardly, for all the work that has been done
on glands and sinews—the structure of the body—has restored little, if any, of the brilliance of
living.

“Ah, youth,” sighs the adult, “if I but had your zest again!” What reduced that zest?

As one’s consciousness of the brilliance of life declines, so has declined one’s own
consciousness. Awareness decreases exactly as consciousness decreases. The ability to
perceive the world around one and the ability to draw accurate conclusions about it are, to all
intents, the same thing.

Glasses are a symptom of the decline of consciousness. One needs one’s sight
bolstered to make the world look brighter. The inability to move swiftly, as one ran when one
was a child, is a decline of consciousness and ability.

Complete unconsciousness is death. Half unconsciousness is half-death. A
quarter-unconsciousness is a quarter of death. And as one accumulates the pain attendant upon
life and fails to accumulate the pleasures, one gradually loses one’s race with the gentleman
with the scythe. And there ensues, at last, the physical incapacity for seeing, for thinking and
for being, as in death.

How does one accumulate this pain? And if one were to get rid of it would full
consciousness and a full bright concept of life return? And is there a way to get rid of it? With
Scientology, the answer is YES.

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ACCENT ON ABILITY


When we say “Life”, all of us know, more or less, what we are talking about; but when
we use this word “Life” practically, we must examine the purposes and behavior, and in
particular, the formulas evolved by Life in order to have the game called “Life”.

When we say “Life”, we mean Understanding; and when we say “Understanding”, we
mean Affinity, Reality, and Communication. To understand all would be to live at the highest
level of potential action and ability. The quality of Life exists in the presence of
Understanding—in the presence then, of Affinity, Reality and Communication.

Life would exist to a far less active degree in the levels of misunderstanding,
incomprehensibility, psychosomatic illness, and physical and mental incapability’s. Because
Life is Understanding, it attempts to understand. When it turns and faces the incomprehensible,
it feels balked and baffled.

If one is obsessively, and without understanding, being determined into
incomprehensibility, then of course he is lost. Thus we discover that the only trap into which
Life could fall is to do things without knowing it is doing them.

One can always understand that his ability can increase, because in the direction of an
increase in ability is further understanding. Ability is dependent entirely upon a greater and
better understanding of that field or area in which one cares to be more able. When one attempts
to understand inability he is of course looking at less comprehensibility, less understanding,
and so does not then understand lessening ability anywhere near as well as he understands
increasing ability. In the absence of understanding of ability we get a fear of loss of ability,
which is simply the fear of an unknown or a thought-to-beunknowable thing, for there is less
knownness and less understanding in less ability.

Part of understanding and ability is control. Of course, it is not necessary to control
everything everywhere if one totally understands them. However, in a lesser understanding of
things, and of course in the spirit of having a game, control becomes a necessary factor. The
anatomy of control is Start, Stop and Change, and this is fully as important to know as
Understanding itself, and as the triangle which composes Understanding:

Affinity, Reality and Communication.

The doctors and nurses in a contagious ward have some degree of control over the
illnesses which they see before them. It is only when they begin to recognize their inability to
handle these ills or these patients that they, themselves, succumb to these. In view of the fact
that of recent centuries we have been very successful in handling contagious diseases, doctors
and nurses, then, can walk with impunity through contagious wards.

The fighters of disease, having some measure of control over the disease, are then no
longer afraid of the disease and so it cannot affect them. Of course, there would be a level of
body understanding on this which might yet still mirror fear, but we would have the same
statement obtaining. People who are able to control something do not need to be afraid of it and
do not suffer ill effects from it. People who cannot control things can receive bad effects from
those things.

The common denominator of all neurosis, psychosis, aberration and psychosomatic ills
is “can’t work”. Any nation which has a high incidence of these is reduced in production and is
reduced in longevity.

Amongst the unable is the criminal, who is unable to think of the other fellow, unable to
determine his own actions, unable to follow orders, unable to make things grow, unable to
determine the difference between good and evil, unable to think at all on the future. Anybody

25



has some of these; the criminal has all of them.

has some of these; the criminal has all of them.

The accent is on ability.

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HONEST PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS, TOO

HONEST PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS, TOO

When you know the technology of the mind, you know that it is a mistake to use
“individual rights” and “freedom” as arguments to protect those who would only destroy.

Individual rights were not originated to protect criminals, but to bring freedom to honest
men. Into this area of protection then dived those who needed “freedom” and “individual
liberty” to cover their own questionable activities.

Freedom is for honest people. No man who is not himself honest can be free—he is in
his own trap. When his own deeds cannot be disclosed, then he is a prisoner; he must withhold
himself from his fellows and is a slave to his own conscience. Freedom must be deserved
before any freedom is possible.

To protect dishonest people is to condemn them to their own hells. By making
“individual rights” a synonym for “protect the criminal” one helps bring about a slave state for
all, for where “individual liberty” is abused, an impatience with it arises which at length sweeps
us all away. The targets of all disciplinary laws are the few who err. Such laws, unfortunately,
also injure and restrict those who do not err. If all were honest, there would be no disciplinary
threats.

There is only one way out for a dishonest person—facing up to his own responsibilities
in the society and putting himself back into communication with his fellow man, his family, the
world at large. By seeking to invoke his “individual rights” to protect himself from an
examination of his deeds, he reduces, just that much, the future of individual liberty—for he
himself is not free. Yet he infects others who are honest by using their right to freedom to
protect himself.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a guilty conscience.

And it will lie no more easily by seeking to protect misdeeds by pleas of “freedom
means that you must never look at me”. The right of a person to survive is directly related to his
honesty.

Freedom for man does not mean freedom to injure man. Freedom of speech does not
mean freedom to harm by lies.

Man cannot be free while there are those amongst him who are slaves to their own
terrors.

The mission of a techno-space society is to subordinate the individual and control him
by economic and political duress. The only casualty in a machine age is the individual and his
freedom.

To preserve that freedom one must not permit men to hide their evil intentions under the
protection of that freedom. To be free, a man must be honest with himself and with his fellows.

If a man uses his own honesty to protest the unmasking of dishonesty, then that man is
an enemy of his own freedom.

We can stand in the sun only so long as we don’t let the deeds of others bring the
darkness.

Freedom is for the honest men. Individual liberty exists only for those who have the

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ability to be free.

ability to be free.

Only a madman would break a wanted object he could repair.

The individual must not die in this machine age—rights or no rights. The criminal and

madman must not triumph with their new-found tools of destruction.

The least free person is the person who cannot reveal his own acts and who protests the
revelation of the improper acts of others. On such people will be built a future political slavery
where we all have numbers—and our guilt—unless we act.

It is fascinating that blackmail and punishment are the keynotes of all dark operations.
What would happen if these two commodities no longer existed? What would happen if all men
were free enough to speak? Then and only then, would you have freedom.

On the day when we can fully trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.

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ACCEPTANCE LEVEL


One thing that a person will discover is that he has been carefully taught that certain
things are bad and, therefore, not enjoyable and that he has set up resistance’s to these things
and that they, at length— these resistance’s—have become a sponge for the things they were
set up to counteract and the resistance, caving in, has created a hunger for that which was, at
first, resisted.

This is the physical universe at work in its very best operation: Make one fight
something, then so arrange it that one winds up craving for what one was fighting.

You can, if you look about you, see Acceptance Level dramatized in every activity of
life. You can understand, then, why some woman will not clean up a living room; a living
room is not acceptable, except in a cluttered fashion to this person. You can understand, also,
why some man leaves a beautiful and helpful girl and runs off with a maid or a prostitute; his
acceptance level was too far below the beautiful girl. You can understand, too, some of you,
why you were not acceptable in your own homes when you were young; you were too bright
and too cheerful and this was too high above those around you. You can understand, as well,
why the newspapers print the stories they do.

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CONFRONTING

CONFRONTING

The first step of handling anything is gaining an ability to face it.

It could be said that war continues as a threat to man because man cannot confront war.
The idea of making war so terrible that no one will be able to fight it is the exact reverse of
fact—if one wishes to end war. The invention of the long bow, gun powder, heavy naval
cannon, machine guns, liquid fire, and the hydrogen bomb add only more and more certainty
that war will continue. As each new element which man cannot confront is added to elements
he has not been able to confront so far, man engages himself upon a decreasing ability to
handle war.

We are looking here at the basic anatomy of all problems. Problems start with an
inability to confront anything. Whether we apply this to domestic quarrels or to insects, to
garbage dumps or Picasso, one can always trace the beginning of any existing problem to an
unwillingness to confront.

Let us take a domestic scene. The husband or the wife cannot confront the other, cannot
confront second dynamic consequences, cannot confront the economic burdens, and so we
have domestic strife. The less any of these actually are confronted, the more problem they will
become.

It is a truism that one never solves anything by running away from it. Of course, one
might also say that one never solves cannon balls by baring his breast to them. But I assure you
that if nobody cared whether cannon balls were fired or not, control of people by threat of
cannon balls would cease.

Down on Skid Row where flotsam and jetsam exist to keep the police busy, we could
not find one man whose basic difficulties, whose downfall could not be traced at once to an
inability to confront. A criminal once came to me whose entire right side was paralyzed. Yet,
this man made his living by walking up to people in alleys, striking them and robbing

them. Why he struck people he could not connect with his paralyzed side and arm.
From his infancy he had been educated not to confront men. The nearest he could come to
confronting men was to strike them, and so his criminal career.

The more the horribleness of crime is deified by television and public press, the less the
society will be able to handle crime. The more formidable is made the juvenile delinquent, the
less the society will be able to handle the juvenile delinquent.

In education, the more esoteric and difficult a subject is made, the less the student will
be able to handle the subject. When a subject is made too formidable by an instructor, the more
the student retreats from it. There were, for instance, some early European mental studies
which were so complicated and so incomprehensible and which were sewn with such lack of
understanding of man that no student could possibly confront them.

Man, at large today, is in this state with regard to the human spirit. For centuries man
was educated to believe in demons, ghouls, and things that went boomp in the night. There
was an organization in southern Europe which capitalized upon this terror and made demons
and devils so formidable that at length man could not even face the fact that any of his fellows
had souls. And thus we entered an entirely materialistic age. With the background teaching that
no one can confront the “invisible”, vengeful religions sought to move forward into a foremost
place of control. Naturally, they failed to achieve their goal and irreligion became the order of
the day, thus opening the door for Communism and other idiocies. Although it might seem true
that one cannot confront the invisible, who said that a spirit was always invisible? Rather, let’s

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say that it is impossible for man or anything else to confront the nonexistent; and thus when
nonexistent gods are invented and are given more roles in the society, we discover man
becomes so degraded that he cannot even confront the spirit in his fellows, much less become
moral.

say that it is impossible for man or anything else to confront the nonexistent; and thus when
nonexistent gods are invented and are given more roles in the society, we discover man
becomes so degraded that he cannot even confront the spirit in his fellows, much less become
moral.

A “Clear”, in an absolute sense, would be someone who could confront anything and
everything in the past, present and future.

The handling of a problem seems to be simply the increase of ability to confront the
problem, and when the problem can be totally confronted, it no longer exists. This is strange
and miraculous.

Man’s difficulties are a compound of his cowardice’s. To have difficulties in life, all it
is necessary to do is to start running away from the business of livingness. After that, problems
of unsolvable magnitude are assured. When individuals are restrained from confronting life,
they accrue a vast ability to have difficulties with it.

Various nervous traits can be traced at once by trying to confront with something which
insists on running away. A nervous hand, for instance, would be a hand with which the
individual is trying to confront something. The forward motion of the nervousness would be
the effort to make it confront; the backward motion of it would be its refusal to confront. Of
course, the basic error is confronting with the hand.

The world is never bright to those who cannot confront it. Everything is a dull gray to a
defeated army. The whole trick of somebody telling you “it’s all bad over there” is contained in
the fact that he is trying to keep you from confronting something and thus make you retreat
from life. Eyeglasses, nervous twitches, tensions, all of these things stem from an
unwillingness to confront. When that willingness is repaired, these disabilities tend to
disappear.

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ON BRINGING ORDER


When you start to introduce order into anything, disorder shows up and blows off.
Therefore, efforts to bring order in the society or any part of it will be productive of disorder
for a while every time.

The trick is to keep on bringing order; and soon the disorder is gone, and you have
orderly activity remaining. But if you hate disorder and fight disorder only, don’t ever try to
bring order to anything, for the resulting disorder will drive you half mad.

Only if you can ignore disorder and can understand this principle, can you have a
working world.



(PART 3)