Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (13 page)

If man had not invented language, or, as will be demonstrated, if his languages were a little less homonymic and more specific with their personal pronouns, engrams would still be survival data and the mechanism would work. But Man has outgrown their use. He chose between language and potential madness and for the vast benefits of the former he received the curse of the latter.

The engram is the single and sole source of aberration and psycho-somatic illness.

An enormous quantity of data has been sifted. Not one single exception has been found. In “normal people,” in the neurotic and insane, the removal of these engrams wholly or in part, without other therapy, has uniformly brought about a state greatly superior to the current norm. No need was found for any theory or therapy other than those given in this book for the treatment of all psychic or psycho-somatic ills.

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The reason the engram so long remained hidden as the single source of aberration and psycho-somatic ills is the wide and almost infinitely complex manifestations which can derive from simple engrams.

Several theories could be postulated as to why the human mind evolved exactly as it did, but these are theories, and dianetics is not concerned with structure. A comment or two as a stimulation to future workers in that field might be made, however, wholly as a postulate, that there is a definite connection between any electriclike energy in the body and the energy effusion of cells undergoing injury. A theory could be constructed along the lines that injured cells, further injuring their neighbors by a discharge of electric-like energy, forced the development of a special cell which would act as a conduit to “bleed off” this painful charge.

The conduits of cells might have become neurons and the charge might have been better distributed so through the body with less likelihood of local incapacitation at the point of the injury impact. These conduits -- neurons -- might have been started in formation by impacts at the extremity of the body toward the direction of locomotion. This would make the skull the greatest mass of neurons. Man, walking upright, might have had another new point of impact, the forehead, and so gained his pre-frontal lobes. And maybe not. That is just theory, with only a few data to support it which have a scientific value. And it has not been subjected to experiment of any kind whatever.

This much, however, has to be advanced as theory on structure. The cell is one of the basic building blocks of the body. Cells, the better to survive, seem to have become colonies which, in turn, had the primary interest, survival. And the colonies developed or recruited into aggregations which in turn were organisms, also with the sole purpose of survival. And the organisms developed minds to coordinate the muscles and resolve the problems of survival.

Again, this is still theory and even if it was the track of reasoning which led toward dianetics, it can be completely wrong. It works. It can be pulled away from dianetics and dianetics will remain a science and go on working. The concept of the electronic brain was not vital but only useful to dianetics and it could be swept away as well -- dianetics would still stand. A science is a changing affair as far as its internal theory goes. In dianetics we have our wedge into an enormous scope of research. As dianetics stands, it works and it works every time and without exception. The reasons why it works will undoubtedly be mulled over and changed here and there to its betterment -- if they aren’t, an abiding faith in this generation of scientists and the future generations will not have been justified.

Why we talk about cells will become apparent as we progress. The reason we know that past concepts of structure are not correct is because they don’t work as function. All our facts are functional and these facts are scientific facts, supported wholly and completely by laboratory evidence. Function precedes structure. James Clerk Maxwell’s mathematics were postulated and electricity was widely and beneficially used long before anyone had any real idea about the structure of the atom. Function always comes before structure. The astounding lack of progress in the field of the human mind during the past thousands of years is partly attributable to its “organ of thought” lying within a field, medicine, which was and long may be an art, not a science. Basic philosophy to explain life will have to come before that art makes much further progress.

What the capabilities of the cell are, for instance, have been but poorly studied. Some work has been carried on in recent years to find out more, but basic philosophy was absent.

The cell was being observed, not predicted.

The studies of cells in Man have been largely done from dead tissue. An unknown quality is missing from dead tissue, the important quality -- life.

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In dianetics, on the level of laboratory observation, we discover much to our astonishment that cells are evidently sentient in some currently inexplicable way. Unless we postulate a human soul entering the sperm and ovum at conception, there are things which no other postulate will embrace than that these cells are in some way sentient. Entering a new field with postulates which work in all directions -- and the basic philosophy of survival is a pilot which leads us on and on into further and further realms, explaining and predicting phenomena on every hand -- it is inevitable that data will turn up which does not agree with past theory.

When that data is as scientific as the observation that when an apple is dropped under usual conditions on Earth it falls, one cannot help but accept it. Abandoning past theories may do damage to treasured beliefs and one’s nostalgic love of the old school tie, but a fact is a fact.

The cells as thought units evidently have an influence, as cells, upon the body as a thought unit and an organism. We do not have to untangle this structural problem to resolve our functional postulates. The cells evidently retain engrams of painful events. After all, they are the things which get injured. And they evidently retain a whip hand of punishment for every time the analyzer fails them. The story of the engram seems to be a story of a battle between the troops and the general every time the general gets some of the troops killed off.

The less fortunate this general is in protecting these troops, the more power the troops assume.

The cells evidently pushed the brain on an upward evolution toward higher sentience. Pain reversed the process as though the cells were sorry they had put so much power in the hands of a central commander.

The reactive mind may very well be the combined cellular intelligence. One need not assume that it is, but it is a handy structural theory in the lack of any real work done in this field of structure. The reactive engram bank may be material stored in the cells themselves. It does not matter whether this is credible or incredible just now. Something has to be said about it to give one a mental hold on what happens during moments of “unconsciousness.”

The scientific fact, observed and tested, is that the organism, in the presence of physical pain, lets the analyzer get knocked out of circuit so that there is a limited quantity or no quantity at all of personal awareness as a unit organism. It does this either to protect the analyzer or to withdraw its power in the belief that an engram is best in an emergency -- with which the analyzer, by the way, on observed experience, does not agree.

Every percept present, including physical pain, is recorded during these non-analytical moments. Whenever pain is present -- physical pain -- that is, the analyzer gets shut down to a small or large extent. If the duration of the pain is only an instant, there is still an instant there of analytical reduction. This can be proven very easily -- just try to recall the last time you were seriously hurt and see if there isn’t at least a momentary blank period. Going to sleep under anaesthetic and waking up some time later is a more complicated sort of shut-down in that it includes physical pain but is initially caused by a poison (and all anaesthetics are poisons, technically). Then there is the condition of suffocating, as in drowning, and this is a shut-down period to greater or lesser extent. And there is the condition caused by blood, for one cause or another, leaving the area or areas which contain analytical power -- wherever they are -- and this again causes a greater or lesser degree of analytical shutdown: such incidents include shock (in which the blood tends to lake in the center of the body), the loss of blood by surgery or injury or anemia and the closing of the arteries leading through the throat. Natural sleep causes a reduction of analytical activity but is actually not very deep or serious; by dianetic therapy any experience occurring during sleep can be recovered with ease.

It can now be seen that there are many ways in which analytical power can be shut down. And it can be seen that there is greater or lesser reduction. When one burns one’s finger with a cigarette, there is a small instant of pain and a small amount of reduction. When one undergoes an operation, the duration may be in terms of hours and the amount of shut-down may be extreme. The duration and the amount of reduction are two different things, related but quite dissimilar. This is not so very important but it is mentioned.

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We have seen, reading in dianetics this far, that the principle of the spectrum has been quite useful to us. And it can be seen that the amount of reduction in analytical power can be described in the same way that survival potential can be described. There can be a very little bit and there can be a very great deal. Going back and taking a look at the survival potential range, one can see that there would be death at the bottom and immortality at the top. There is

“infinite” survival. Whether or not there can be infinite analytical power is a matter of mysticism. But that there is a definite relationship between individual tone and the amount of analytical shutdown is a scientific fact. Put it this way: with the individual well and happy and enthusiastic, analytical power can be considered to be high (Zones 3 and 4). With the individual under the wheels of a truck, “unconscious” and in agony, the analytical power may be considered to be ranging in Zone 0. There is a ratio between potential survival and analytical power. As one goes down, so does the other. There is more data to be concluded from this than one would think at first glance. It is a very important ratio.

All the percepts are included in an engram. Two of these percepts are physical pain and painful emotion. A third is organic sensation, which is to say, the condition of the organism during the moment of the engram. And how was the organism when the engram was received?

Greater or lesser “unconsciousness” was present. This meant that there was an organic sensation of reduced analytical power, since analytical power derives, evidently, from an organ or organs in the body. If an engram is reactivated by a restimulator or restimulators -- that is to say if the individual with an engram receives something in his environment similar to the perceptions in the engram -- the engram puts everything it contains -- its percepts such as faucets and words -- into greater or lesser operation.

There can be greater or lesser restimulation. An engram can be put into force just a little bit by restimulators in the environment of the individual or, with many restimulators present and the body in an already reduced state, the engram can go into a full force display (which is covered later). But whether the engram is slightly restimulated or greatly restimulated, everything in it goes into effect one way or another.

There is just one common denominator of all engrams, just one thing which every engram has and which is possessed by every other engram. Each contains the datum that the analyzer is more or less shut-down. There is a shut-down datum in every engram. Therefore, every time an engram is restimulated, even though physical pain has not been received by the body, some analytical power turns off, the organ or organs which are the analyzer are fused out of circuit in some degree.

This is highly important to an understanding of the mechanics of aberration. It is a scientific fact, susceptible of proof, and it never varies. This always happens: when an engram is received, the analyzer is shut down by the physical pain and emotion; when the engram is restimulated the analyzer shuts down as part of the commands of the engram. Actually this is a very mechanical thing. Engram is restimulated, part of the analytical power is shut down. This is as inevitable as turning on and off an electric light. Pull the cord and the light goes off. The reduction of the analyzer is not that sharp -- there are grades of light -- but it is just as mechanical.

Put a man under ether, hurt him in the chest. He has received an engram because his analytical power was turned off first by ether and then by a chest pain. While he was there on the operating table, the reactive mind recorded the click of instruments, everything said, all sounds and smells. Let us suppose that a nurse was holding one of his feet because he was kicking. This is a complete engram.

The engram will be keyed-in by something in the future, a similar incident. After this, in greater or lesser degree, whenever he hears clicks like instrument clicks he gets nervous. If he pays attention to what is happening in his body at that minute, he may find that his foot feels slightly as if it were being held. But he is not likely to give any attention to his foot because if 55

he had any attention to give, the chest pain would be found present in some degree. But his analytical ability has been turned off slightly. As the foot felt it was being held, so does the analyzer have the conception of being shut down by ether and pain. The restimulator (the clicking) tended to bring the whole engram slightly into being and part of the engram command is a reduced analytical power.

This is “push-button” in its precision. If one knew another’s main restimulators (words, voice tones, music, whatever they are -- things which are filed in the reactive mind bank as parts of engrams) one could turn another’s analytical power almost completely off, actually render him unconscious.