Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (58 page)

Here, with all this, must be included an important and vital fact. It should be on a page by itself and underscored. All patients in therapy should be given a dosage of vitamin B1 orally or by injection at the minimum of 10 mg. per day. Reducing engrams exhausts Q which seems to depend in some measure on B1. You can be absolutely certain of nightmares in a patient who is not taking his B1. Taking liberal doses of that, he will have no nightmares. DT’s are probably caused by a similar exhaustion of Q Quantity. DT’s are best treated by B1 and dianetics. Something like DT’s on a very minor scale have been observed to develop in occasional patients who were negligent about their B1. With it, in therapy, they thrive.

Alcohol is rarely an assist to the auditor. In fact, alcohol is rarely an assist to anyone. A depressant, classifiable at best as a poison, alcohol has the single virtue of being highly taxable. All alcoholics are alcoholic because of their engrams. All alcoholics, unless they have injured their brains -- which case is cited only because it is possible, not because research in dianetics demonstrated any real evidence of it -- can be released. Alcoholism is engramic. It has become, in some very understandable way, a class of contagious aberration whereby the reactive mind confuses alcohol and “being a good sport” or “having fun” or “forget your troubles.” Some of these things can also be obtained by strychnine and cyanide. Alcohol has its uses: one can put specimens of frogs and such in it: one can clean the germs off needles with it: it burns well in rockets. But one would not consider preserving his stomach in a glass jar and, unless insane, does not think of himself as a needle. While some drunks think they act like rockets, few have been observed to reach an altitude of more than the floor. It is not only a poor stimulant-depressant, it is also an hypnotic in the finest sense: what is done to a drunk becomes an engram. The chronic alcoholic is physically and mentally ill. Dianetics can clear him or even merely release him without too much trouble for alcohol is apparently not physiological in its addictive effect. With the whole range of chemistry to choose stimulants and depressants from, why the government chooses a superiorly aberrative and inferiorly stimulative compound to legalize is a problem for the better mathematicians, possibly these who deal exclusively in tax income problems. Opium is less harmful, marijuana is not only less physically harmful but also better in the action of keeping a neurotic producing, phenobarbital does not dull the senses nearly as much and produces less after effect, ammonium chloride and a host of other stimulants are more productive of results and hardly less severe on the anatomy: but no, the engrams, contaging unpleasantly along from the first crude brew which made one of our ancestors drunk, decree that alcohol is the only thing which is to be drunk if a person wants to “forget it all” and “have a good time.” There is really nothing wrong with alcohol save that it depends mainly on engrams and other advertising for its effect and is otherwise remarkably inferior in performance: that it makes such aberrative engrams is probably its main claim to fame and infame. Making one drug immoral and another one taxable is a sample of the alcohol engram in society. However, although it is immensely legal, it is doubtful if the auditor will find any use for it in therapy.

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And speaking of drugs, that three thousand cycle note in your ears came either from a nitrous oxide engram or mother taking lots of quinine before you were born in the hope that she would not be a mother, saying the while, “It makes my ears ring so: it just keeps on and on and on and will not stop!”

AUTO-CONTROL

Since the beginning of dianetics research eleven years ago, patients have, in the majority, had some belief that they could run their cases in auto-control.

Not understanding that an auditor is only interested in what has been done to, not done by a patient, some shyness or imagined guilt often prompts this vain hope that one can accomplish therapy alone.

It cannot be done. That is a flat statement and it is a scientific fact. The auditor is necessary for a large number of reasons. He is not there to control or order the pre-clear about, but he is there to listen, to provide insistence, to compute the trouble the pre-clear is having and remedy it. The work is done on these equations:

The dynamics of the pre-clear are less than the force in his reactive bank.

The dynamics of the pre-clear plus the dynamics of the auditor are greater than the force in the pre-clear’s reactive bank.

The analytical mind of the pre-clear is shut down whenever he reaches an engram and he is then unable to pursue it and recount it enough times to discharge it without auditor assistance.

The analytical mind of the pre-clear plus the analytical mind of the auditor can discover engrams and recount them.

(There is another equation, not elsewhere mentioned, but germane to the auditor’s code, which demonstrates mathematically the necessity of that code: The force of the pre-clear’s engram bank plus the force of the auditor’s analytical mind is greater than the analytical mind and the dynamics of the pre-clear. This explains the necessity of never attacking the pre-clear personally. It also explains the behavior of the aberree under attack in usual life and why he grows angry and apathetic, for this equation overwhelms his analyzer.)

These equations demonstrate actual natural laws.

Auto-control finds the pre-clear attempting to attack something which has never been overcome by his analyzer although his analyzer has never been trying, interiorly, to do anything else but attack that bank so long as the analyzer would operate. The fact that the preclear’s analyzer shuts down whenever he comes into an area of “unconsciousness” was why the engrams could take him over and use him as a puppet when they were restimulated -- they simply shut down the analyzer.

Many efforts by many patients have been made to put dianetics on an auto-control level.

They have all failed and thus far it is believed to be utterly and completely impossible. The preclear in auto-control reverie may be able to reach some locks: he can certainly reach pleasant experiences and achieve data recall by return: but he cannot attack his own engrams without a standard auditor-pre-clear arrangement.

Aside from dianetic reverie, some pre-clears have been foolish enough to attempt auto-hypnosis and thus reach their engrams. Hypnotism in any form is unwarranted in dianetics.

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Auto-hypnosis used in dianetics is probably as close to fruitless masochism as one can get. If a patient places himself in auto-hypnosis and regresses himself in an effort to reach illness or birth or prenatals, the only thing he will get is ill. Of course, people will try. None are ever convinced until they have tried once they begin to agitate about auto-control. But be sure to have a friend and this book handy so that he can audit away the headaches and such that suddenly turn on.

Dianetic reverie, which means with an auditor present, is not dangerous or severe.

Auto-control is often very uncomfortable and often fruitless. It should not be attempted.

The clear alone can auto-control his whole time track back to conception and does when he wants specific data from anywhere in his life. But he is clear.

ORGANIC MENTAL ALTERATIONS

There are several things which can happen to the nervous system including the brain which can cause structural change. These are called in dianetics, organic mental alterations.

They are not called “organic neuroses,” or “organic psychoses” because the alteration of structure does not necessarily produce aberrations. There has been a confusion in the past between behavior caused by organic differences and behavior caused by engrams: this confusion came about because the engram bank and the reactive mind were not known.

Any human being with an organic mental alteration also has engrams. The behavior dictated by the engrams and the action caused by alteration are different things. Engrams carry dramatizations, delusions, tantrums and various inefficiencies with them. Alterations establish inabilities to think or perceive or record or recall. For instance the radio set may have new filters and circuits added to it which change and vary its performance and reduce it from optimum; these would be engrams: the radio set might have original tubes or circuits deleted from it or it might have some of the wires crossed; this would be organic mental alteration.

The sources of organic mental alteration are as follows: 1.

Variation of the blueprint of structure by reason of a changed gene pattern. Some parts of the body would grow too much or too little to establish any alteration of structure.

This is usually so gross a change that it is obvious. The feeble-minded and so on may suffer either from engrams or an altered blueprint, but usually both.

2.

Alteration of the nervous system by disease or growths which divides into two classes: (a) Disease destruction as in paresis. (b) Additional construction as in the case of tumors.

3.

Alteration of the nervous system by drugs or poisons.

4.

Alteration by physical disorder as in the case of a “paralytic stroke” wherein certain tissues are inhibited or destroyed.

5.

Physical change in structure due to injury as in the case of a head wound.

6.

Alteration of structure by surgery as a necessity to remedy injury or disease.

7.

Iatrogenic alterations (caused by doctors) undertaken under a misapprehension of brain function. These can be divided into two classes: (a) Surgical, to include such things as the trans-orbital leukotomy, pre-frontal lobotomy, topectomy and so forth. (b) Shock

“therapies” of all kinds including electric shock, insulin shock, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.etc.etc.

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The first six sources of organic mental alteration are much less common than has been supposed. The body is an extremely hardy mechanism and its repair facilities are enormous. If an individual can be made to speak or follow orders at all, it is conceivable that the techniques of dianetics can be applied to reduce the engrams in the engram bank, bringing about considerable improvement in the condition and mental ability of the individual. When these various sources are so severe that they inhibit any use of therapy, and when it is certain that no recourse to therapy is possible and that it is utterly impossible to reach the engram bank by standard technique, hypnotism or drugs, such cases can be considered beyond help of dianetics.

Category 7 presents another problem. Here we have selective experimentation at work and it would be flatly impossible to conceive, without months of study of their experimental subjects, how many brands and varieties of operation have been performed and how many odd and bizarre shocks have been used.

All iatrogenic alterations of the nervous system can be considered under the heading of

“reduced ability,” in other words, inability. In each case something has been done to reduce the ability of the individual to perceive, record, recall or think. Any of these complicate a case for dianetics, but they do not inevitably bar dianetics from working.

In shock cases, such as electric shock, tissue may have been destroyed and the memory banks may in some way have been scrambled, the time track may be altered and other conditions may exist.

In all such iatrogenic alterations, the results of dianetics must be considered equivocal.

BUT IN ALL SUCH CASES, PARTICULARLY THOSE OF ELECTRIC SHOCK, DIANETICS SHOULD BE USED IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY IN AN EFFORT TO

IMPROVE THE PATIENT.

All shocks and operations should be picked up for what they are -- engrams.

NO PERSON WHO CAN PERFORM ROUTINE TASKS OR WHOSE ATTENTION

CAN BE ATTRACTED AND FIXED SHOULD FEEL DESPAIR OR BE CONSIDERED

HOPELESS.

Any person who has been subjected to such treatment may not be able to reach optimum mental efficiency but he may be able to reach a level of rationality even yet in excess of the current normal. The thing to do is try. In spite of what has happened or what has been done, in the large majority of cases there may be a chance of excellent recovery.

ORGANIC DERANGEMENT

A standard class of prenatal engrams has as its content the worry of the parents that the child will be feeble-minded if not now aborted in earnest. This adds an emotional overload to such engrams and it adds, as importantly, an aberrative condition in the now grown patient that he is “not right,” “all wrong,” “feeble-minded,” and so forth. The difficulty of aborting the child is nearly always underestimated: the means used are often novel or bizarre: the worry because the child has not come out of the womb after the abortion attempt is acute, and the concern that he is now damaged beyond repair all combine to make severely aberrative engrams and, because of their content, engrams which are difficult to reach.

The aberrative quality of the “feeble-minded” species of remark is of course, high. The worry that the child may be born blind or deaf or otherwise incapacitated is common. The former class of engramic remarks can bring about actual feeble-mindedness; the latter concern over blindness and so on bring about, at best, impaired visio and sonic recall.

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The shut-off of the recalls is occasioned as well by an engramic belief in the society at large that the unborn child is blind, unfeeling and not alive. This belief is introduced into AA (attempted abortion) engrams by people’s self-justification remarks while attempting an abortion: “Well, he can’t see, feel or hear anyway.” Or, “It doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s blind, deaf and dumb. It’s a sort of growth. It isn’t human.”

The greater part of all sonic and visio recall shut-off has as its source the remarks made at such times or by painful emotion and other engramic data. Hundreds of hours of therapy may pass before these recalls turn on.

The bulk of all shut-offs will turn on in the course of therapy. There are thousands of engramic remarks and emotional situations which will deny the pre-clear his recall and that recall can be expected ordinarily to restore.