The Axioms of Scientology are a list of usable or self evident truths and are a major part of the technical information of a Scientologist.

Having these Axioms we are now particularly interested in this whole subject of truth and its actual use in auditing. We see immediately that any problem of any character or scope is the basic business of a Scientologist. If you have someone who wants to know about solutions, you had certainly better give him not a solution to a problem but the solution to problems, and that of course would be a basic and ultimate truth. Well, if you can describe a basic and ultimate truth, and describe it exactly, you have no problem at all in solving problems.

Having these we are now operating on just fifty axioms and definitions, where the Dianetic Axioms of 1951 were in excess of one hundred and ninety. We arrived at these fifty Axioms of Scientology through a great many changes, a great many major developments – all of them in the direction of higher workability and simplification.

We see that failure to discover truth brings about stupidity. A person begins to believe he's stupid if he can't As-is.

A student in training in Scientology is not expected to read these Axioms. He is expected to absorb them, quote them verbatim and by number, understand and apply them.

We see that the discovery of truth would bring about an As-is-ness, by actual experiment, and thus we see that an ultimate truth would have no time, place or form.

Webster's says that an axiom is a self evident truth.

Whatever we had there would simply disappear if we discovered an ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is a perfect duplicate and therefore a Static. And, operationally, to achieve a Static would be to make a perfect duplicate.

Comparing the Axioms of Scientology with axioms in another subject, these are certainly as self-evident as those of, for instance, geometry, which is actually a relatively crude subject in that it proves itself by itself, which is a limitation that Scientology does not have.

We see that a lie as we understand it is an alteration of time, place, event or form, and that only lies persist.

The Axioms of Scientology prove themselves by all of life.

We have to have a basic postulate, and then another postulate, before we get time. Two postulates. We can't have time with one postulate unless it is the postulate that there will be time. That could be one postulate. But normally in operation we find that two postulates are necessary to achieve time.

In geometry we find the Aristotelian syllogism arbitrarily cutting across the whole subject. In Scientology we needed a better base than the syllogism and we have a better one.

Now which one of these postulates is going to persist if the two postulates deny each other: the second one is going to persist, because it is the time postulate.

The platform on which we base our understanding is, if something doesn't work when applied we change what we are doing and find something which does work. We are certainly not bowed down to the great god No Change.

Lying becomes an Alter-is-ness, and becomes stupidity. In other words, we don't discover where the thing is, we don't discover exactly how it is, so we can't unmock it, and there we are. The only thing that we can do with it possibly is to Not-is it or Alter-is it some more or do what a Black V does – just stir it around and hope it will disappear. He doesn't As-is it. It doesn't disappear.

Well, true enough, these Axioms are self evident truths. But they are not so thoroughly self evident that they leap out of the page and introduce themselves to you. You have to introduce yourself to them.

Oddly enough, lying will develop into a stupidity. It also develops into a mystery – into this blackness which individuals are so upset about. It's just an alteration of time, place, event or form after the fact of its having been created.

The first of the Axioms is a bit of understanding which if you did not have and did not actually understand very well you would not be able to do anything with Scientology.

There would be two kinds of lie here. A mechanical lie does not lead to blackness.

It's just as blunt as that.

Mechanical lie: we mock up some space, and we put an object in that space and then we move it. The moment we've moved it we've lied about it. We've said it's over there when as a matter of fact it was created in the first location. Now in view of the fact that there is only consideration this of course would bring about mechanically a lie. It doesn't disappear, it doesn't do anything peculiar simply by moving it around. The mere handling of energy does not bring about a stupidity. It takes another consideration than simply moving something to bring about an occlusion.

Axiom One: Life is basically a static.

Now, anything to persist must avoid As-is-ness, and thus anything to persist, really to persist, must contain a lie. And we get the next Axiom:

And what is this static?

Axiom Thirty-Nine: Life poses problems for its own solution.

Definition: a Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive.

Now what do we find here, in a problem? We find something which is persisting, the As-is-ness of which cannot readily be obtained, and would be the definition of a problem.

This is a peculiar and particular static, having these properties and a further peculiarity, which we find in the next Axiom.

Now to solve that problem it would be necessary to get its As-is-ness. Well, how do we prevent something from being As-ised, in other words vanished? We introduce a lie into it.

Axiom Two: The static is capable of considerations, postulates, and opinions.

Axiom Forty: Any problem, to be a problem, must contain a lie. if it were truth, it would unmock.

You can't measure this Static.

When the preclear is being a problem, we know very well that there's a lie somewhere on the track that he's trying to obtain the As-is-ness of. It's not necessarily his lie, but it certainly is a lie. And under Axiom Forty we get: An "unsolvable problem" would have the greatest persistence.

When you find something which has no mass, no location, no position in time and no wavelength – the very fact that it can't be measured tells you that you have your hands on Life itself.

It would also contain the greatest number of altered facts. To make a problem, one must introduce Alter-is-ness.

You can't measure it, yet all things measurable extend from it. From this Static all phenomena extend.

In other words, this problem must have been moved and shifted and shoved around considerably to be unsolvable.

You cannot measure a dog by his biscuits and you cannot measure this Static by the phenomena extending from it.

Axiom Forty-One: That into which alter-is-ness is introduced becomes a problem.

Space is one of these phenomena. You could say that Life is a space-energy-object production and placement unit because that is what it does. But when you measure these you do not measure Life.

Any time you Alter-is something you've got a problem on your hands.

A thetan is very, very close to being a pure Static. He has practically no wavelength.

This whole universe, then, is a problem. Therefore this whole universe must contain alie to go on persisting the way it does. It certainly does contain Alter-is. It certainly does contain a lie. It contains a variety of lies about its creation, and there are all sorts of things about this universe which cause its persistence, and all of those things boil down to the one fact that it must be based upon a lie and it must be very definitely altered.

Actually a thetan is in a very, very small amount of mass. From some experiments conducted about fifteen or twenty years ago – a thetan weighed about 1.5 ounces! Who made these experiments? Well, a doctor made these experiments. He weighed people before and after death, retaining any mass. He weighed the person, bed and all, and he found that the weight dropped at the moment of death about 1.5 ounces and some of them 2 ounces. (Those were heavy thetans.) So we have this thetan capable of considerations, postulates and opinions, and the most native qualities to him – in other words the things which he is most likely to postulate – are these qualities which you find in the top "buttons" of the Chart of Attitudes. "Trust", "Full Responsibility", etc.

Axiom Forty-one tells us that it was alteration which brought the preclear into having a problem. Thus we find any child who has moved extensively, who has had his home changed, who has been shoved around to various parts of the world, eventually becomes a problem, first to the environment and then to himself.

So we have then actually described a thetan when we have gotten Axioms One and Two. Without these known well an auditor would have an awfully hard time exteriorizing (Exteriorizing: exteriorization: the state achieved in which the thetan can be outside his body with certainty) somebody – because if you thought that you reached in with a pair of forceps and dragged someone out of his head, well, this it not the way it is. You would not be thinking of a thetan. To exteriorize something that can't possibly be grabbed hold of, that's quite a trick.

Axiom Forty-Two: MEST (matter, energy, space, time) persists because it is a problem.

A thetan has to postulate he's inside before you can have him postulate that he's outside. But if he heavily postulated that he's inside, now your trick as an auditor is to do what? Override this thetan's postulates? That would fit into the field of hypnotism, or maybe you could do it with a club, but the way we do it in Scientology is a little more delicate than these. We simply ask him to postulate that he's outside, and if he can and does, why, he's outside. And if he can't, why, he's still inside.

It is a problem because it contains Alter-is-ness.Your physicist is busily at work trying to unmock it but he is unmocking it by Not-is – ness. He's using force to alter force, and because he keeps altering it, it all naturally just gets worse and worse. He will solve nothing with an atom bomb. He will simply make things go worse, more complicated, more confused, more dispersed. The atom bomb is a dead-end track and is folly, it is great folly.

Thetans think of themselves as being in the MEST universe (MEST universe: the physical universe, from the initial letters of matter, energy, space, time). Of course, this is a joke, too. As the Static they can't possibly be in a universe.

If an atom bomb were introduced into a war the number of particles and the amount of MEST which would be altered, we would discover immediately, would have introduced a great number of lies into the situation, it would have deteriorated the society and everything else. If we were foolish enough, for instance, to atom bomb Russia, or if Russia were foolish enough to atom bomb the United States, enough confusion would have been introduced into the cultures of earth so that probably there would be no other choice but to sink into a barbarism, in the absence of an understanding of life itself.

But they can postulate a condition and then they can postulate that they cannot escape this condition.

Axiom Forty-Three: Time is the primary source of untruth.

Axiom Three: Space, energy, objects, form and time are the result of considerations made and/ or agreed upon or not by the static, and are perceived solely because the static considers that it can perceive them.

Time states the untruth of consecutive considerations.

The whole secret of perception is right there. Do you believe that you can see? Well, all right, go ahead and believe that you can see but you'd certainly better believe that there's something there to see or you won't see. So there are two conditions to sight, and they are covered immediately here in that you have to believe there is something to see and then that you can see it. And so you have perception. All of the tremendous number of categories to perception come under this heading, and are covered by that Axiom. So that Axiom should be known very, very well.

I call your attention to interest, as an interesting thing to observe. There are two classes of interest, and we want to know why we're thinking about this in terms of time, and this is because time is the basic lie behind all lies. We believe there are consecutive moments. We see consecutive motions and this all very pleasant – we agree to this – and it's only when we have masked them with some vicious intent that we really get a kick-back from the progress of time.

Axiom Four: Space is a viewpoint of dimension.

But we discover here in the matter of interest that we have two facets: one is "interested", and the other is "interesting".

Do you know that physics has gone on since the time of Aristotle without knowing that! Yet we read in the Encyclopedia Britannica of many years ago (the Eleventh Edition, published in 1911) that space and time are not a problem of the physicist. They are the problem of one working in the field of the mind. And it says that when the field of psychology solves the existence of space and time why then physics will be able to do something with it.

A thetan is interested, and an object is interesting. A thetan is not interesting. He is interested. And when a person becomes terribly interesting he has lots of problems, believe me. That is the chasm that is crossed. That is the chasm which is crossed by all of your celebrities, anybody who is foolish enough to become famous. He crosses over from being interested in life to being interesting, and people who are interesting are really no longer interested in life. It's very baffling to some young fellow why he can't make some beautiful girl interested in him. Well, she is not interested, she is interesting.

And all those fellows with their Ph.D.'s – not for centuries actually but a number of decades (it seems like centuries if you've ever listened to their lectures) – going back to the days of Wundt, The Only Wundt – about 1867 – they didn't read the Encyclopedia Britannica and find out that they held the responsibility for identifying space and time so that physics could get on its way.

Axiom Forty-Four: Theta (the static) has no location in matter, energy, space, or time. It is capable of consideration.

And because they avoided this responsibility we have to pitch in here and discover and develop Scientology – not to work in the field of physics, however, but to work in the field of the Humanities. But it so happened that I discovered very, very early while I was studying nuclear physics at George Washington University that physics did not have a definition for space, time and energy. It defined energy in terms of space and time. It defined space in terms of time and energy, and it defined time in terms of energy and space. It was going around in a circle. I first moved out of that circle by putting it into human behavior – be, do and have, which you'll find in Scientology: 8-8008, but the point is here that without a definition for space, physics was and is adrift. One of our auditors was recently talking to an engineer in an Atomic Energy Commission plant, and happened to remark, "Well, we have a definition for space." This engineer said, "Uh, you do?" and got instantly interested. Of course we didn't make this definition for nuclear physicists, but they could certainly use one. The engineer asked, "What is the definition of space?" and the auditor said, "Space viewpoint of dimension." This fellow just sat there for a moment, and he sat there, and then all of a sudden he rushed to the phone and dialed a number and he said, "Close down number five!" He had suddenly realized that an experiment in progress was about to explode and one of the reasons he knew it was about to explode is that he had found out what space was. This is of great interest to nuclear physicists, but they will get one of these definitions and then they will start to figure, figure, figure, figure, figure. They don't take the definition as such and use it as such. They figure-figure, and they lose it.

We have put it right in there again just to drive it home well. There's no time in this Static. Time is a lie.

Using the process R2-40: Conceiving a Static*In The Creation of Human Ability by L. Ron Hubbard gives an understanding of exactly why, every time they get rid of one of these definitions they lose it.

Time can be postulated by the Static but is only a consideration and thereafter a thetan gets the idea that he is persisting across a span of time, and he is not.

Axiom Five: Energy consists of postulated particles in space.

He is not persisting. Objects are going across time, and energies and spaces are changing, but he is not. At no time does he actually change. He has to consider he is in a head before he can be put out of one, and that he is out before he can be out.

Now, we've got space: a viewpoint of dimension.

A Step V, or Black Five, is quite interesting in this regard. He is always thinking the auditor's going to reach in and pull him out of his head. He's waiting for something else to do it! Of course you could probably hypnotize him and tell him that he was, and he'd probably react in various ways, but he has to say, "I am now out of my head," and then he will be out of his head. But "waiting to see" whether or not he's out of his head is complete nonsense. The only way that he can get anything done, is to consider that it is done, or consider that that is the condition which exists.

You say: "I am here looking in a direction." We've actually got to have three points out there to look at, to have three dimensional space. If we only had linear space we would have only one dimension point. One point to view. And energy consists of postulated particles in space, so we'll demark these three points out there to have some three dimensional space and we'll have these particles which we will call Anchor Points, and we'll have energy.

Axiom Forty-Five: Theta can consider itself to be placed, at which moment it becomes placed, and to that degree a problem.

And so we come to objects.

Any time we fall away from Axiom One, which is repeated as Axiom Forty-four, we discover that we have less of a Static than before. In other words we just place this Static, and it's less of a Static. A thetan, then, can have a problem, just by being placed. Quite in addition to that he ceases to be quite as interested.

Axiom Six: Objects consist of grouped particles.

He himself, placing himself, can get away with it. This isn't very hard for him to do.

If we just kept putting particles out there and pushing them together, or if we suddenly said, "There's a big group of particles out there," we'd have what is commonly called an object. When an object or particle moves across any part of a piece of space – in other words a viewpoint of dimension – we have motion.

And he can perceive from this new place, and so forth, but as long as he is placed, he will be less than the Static. Just remember that. He is to that degree a problem.

And we come to the subject of time.

Axiom Forty-Six: Theta can become a problem by its considerations but then becomes MEST.

Axiom Seven: Time is basically a postulate that space and particles will persist.

A problem is to some degree MEST, MEST IS a problem.

Time in its basic postulate is not even motion. The apparency of time – an agreed upon rate of change – becomes agreed upon time. But for an individual all by himself is simply a consideration. He says something will persist, and he has time. Now if he gets somebody else to agree on what is persisting, the two can then be in agreement. And if the items are motionless then they can't have agreements about how slow it persisting or it get them moving. And this gives fast or how this gives them a clock or a watch. And so you carry a watch around on your wrist.

What is this MEST? We find that an interested thetan is a thetan, but an interesting thetan has become MEST. What is MEST? Well, it's actually simply a composite of energies and particles and spaces which are agreed upon and which are looked at.

But time is not motion. Let's escape from that one right now. It is an error. We'll call that a heresy.

We have the difference between inflow and outflow. A thetan who is being interested is simply outflowing. Interested – outflowing. Interesting – inflowing. He wants the attention of others to flow in to him: interesting. That's MEST. Attention of others flows to it. That doesn't tell you that all MEST is a series of trapped Thetans.

But this gives us another Axiom:

It says that it is a type of life which is being interesting, as opposed to something which is being interested in it.

Axiom Eight: The apparency of time is the change of position of particles in space.

Now, Number Forty-six: Theta can become a problem by its considerations, but then becomes MEST, is followed by this, that MEST is a problem, and will always be considered a problem, and is nothing else but a problem. MEST is that form of theta which is a problem. That's all. Therefore, it is that form of theta which has a lie introduced into it. And so, of course, it is a problem.

Now if we see particles changing in space we know time's passing, but if you had a piece of space and some particles, and you were simply sitting there looking at those particles and there was absolutely no change in them whatsoever, you would be very hard put to describe even to yourself whether any time was passing or not.

Axiom Forty-Seven: Theta can resolve problems.

And so the apparency of time is the change of position of particles in space.

Axiom Forty-Eight: Life is a game wherein theta as the static solves the problems of theta as MEST.

Axiom Nine: Change is the primary manifestation of time.

Now that means that theta is the Static, and theta is the object? Yes, indeed. It can be both ways.

If you were looking at motionless particles you would not be able to tell whether time was passing or not because you might be looking at one time or another. Then to prove time you could say they moved this far at such and such a speed or something of the sort. And you could say, "Therefore this much time has gone by." So we can say that change is the primary manifestation of time. Now, oddly enough you have your "Black Five", occluded case ("no pictures, only blackness") right there. A Black Five is trying to change himself simply because he's in agreement with particles in motion. That's all. He's simply acting on compulsion or obsession to change, and if you asked him very suddenly in which direction he's trying to change he would not be able to tell you. He has no real goal. He doesn't particularly want to be better, he doesn't particularly want to be worse, but he's got to change. He's frantically got to change. Well, why has he got to change? Because he has these particles all around him which are dictating change to him. They're saying, "Time… time… time… time… time… change… change… change."

It all depends on which one is being interested and which one is being interesting. And we find that a preclear gets more and more solid the more interesting he becomes, and the more problem he becomes; and the more problems he has and the more figuring he does on his problems, the more solid he is going to get.

In other words, he's in agreement with the apparency of time, and he has fallen far, far away from the mere consideration of time. So he doesn't conceive what time is. He becomes a nuclear physicist.

Axiom Forty-Nine: To solve any problem it is only necessary to become theta, the solver, rather than theta, the problem.

Axiom Ten: The highest purpose in the universe is the creation of an effect.

That is a very, very important Axiom. That tells you why SOP 8C Opening Procedure works. It works because the main form of theta which we find desirable, which has mobility, which has freedom, which is happy, which is cheerful, which has all those qualities on the top of the Chart of Attitudes is an observer of problems and a solver of problems. So if you get somebody to simply look around the environment, he will cease to be a problem and will become the solver of problems. That's all. Just looking.

We could do a tremendous amount with just that one Axiom, and in processing we would discover then good reason to have space and to have particles and how all these things get there. People want to create an effect, and they get into very interesting states of mind about this sort of thing. They say to themselves, well, let's see now – I caused that effect but that effect is horrible, Therefore I can't admit that I caused that effect, so I'll introduce a lie here and say I didn't cause that effect. And then – they become an effect. If they can't be at cause they become an effect. They are the effect of what they have caused without admitting they caused. But it can get even worse than that – worse than being at total effect. They get way down the line, to the point where they're the cause of any effect. They blame themselves, in other words. A man in Sandusky falls down and breaks a glass of pink lemonade and cuts his little pinky, and this person who is in San Diego at the time hears about that and knows he must be guilty. That's complete reversal.

Get him to look around and recognize a few problems and he will feel better.

A person can get into a state where he's cause and effect simultaneously. That is to say any effect he starts to cause he becomes that effect instantly. He says, I think I'll kill him, and he feels like he's dead. Just like that. Now we've got to have time in order to witness an effect. As an example of this one could observe that science is dedicated to observing an effect and does not have any other real goal. Once in a while you see a scientist who is also an idealist. He wants to use his materials to improve Man. But science at large and particularly when it got over into the field of the mind. was simply a goal-less, soul-less pursuit, the totality of which is just to observe an effect. They are not really even causing an effect. They just go around observing effects. And they fill notebooks and notebooks and notebooks full of effects, effects, effects, effects, and you find they carry on experiments – not to prove anything, not to do anything, but just to observe an effect. They go around and put a pin in the tail of a rat, and the rat jumps and squeaks, and so they say "Ah," and they note it down carefully: "When you put a pin one inch from the end of the tail of a rat he moans". Actually the rat squeaked. Well this was observing an effect – the way it's recorded by science. This goes so far that a leading scientist of the day – an Einstein – says that all an observer has any right to do is look at a needle. If they were just going around observing effects, eventually they could build an atom bomb, and say "Well it isn't my fault. I'm not to blame." The few scientists who did feel badly about this and joined organizations to try to do something were promptly fired by the government. They had some responsibility.

Somebody then who is worrying about himself constantly – well, he's all mixed up in a problem and his affinity is at a closure with this problem. He's having an awful time. Then let's take this and turn it around the other way and let's have him observe himself as a problem, and we get that part of the process which is "Problems and Solutions". And naturally, if we asked a thetan to be a solution often enough, he would eventually become a Static. That's all. If we asked him to observe problems long enough he would simply become a Static. In other words he would go out of it both ways.

Axiom Eleven: The considerations resulting in conditions of existence are four-fold.

A Thetan could become a problem, more of a problem, more of a problem, more of a problem, more and more and more and more and more and more – static. You see he could go "out the bottom".

And here they are in exact axiom form: (a) AS-IS-NESS is the condition of immediate creation without persistence, and is the condition of existence which exists at the moment of creation and the moment of destruction, and is different from other considerations in that it does not contain survival.

Or, he could go: less of a problem, less of a problem, less, less – static. He could go either way. So there's no avoiding it, you're going to survive anyway, and so are your preclears, but we're going to have a better world doing it.

1. Alter-Is-Ness is the consideration which introduces change and therefore time and persistence into an As-Is-Ness to obtain persistency.

Axiom Fifty: Theta as MEST must contain considerations which are lies.

In other words, there isn't a single piece of MEST in the world which isn't to some degree lying.

Looking at that, then, we find that the only crime that you could possibly commit in this universe is being there. It doesn't matter where. This is the only crime that you could commit.

Axiom Twelve: The primary condition of any universe is that two spaces energies or objects must not occupy the same space. When this condition is violated (perfect duplicate) the apparency of any universe or any part thereof is nulled.

And this is all your parents objected to, and this is all the preclear objects to when you're auditing him and he growls at you. They add tremendous significances into this, but all they object to is being there. Now if you ran SOP 8C, Opening Procedure, and you ran it very, very definitely with that postulate: to get the fact that the wall is there. Get the fact that the chair is there, that something else is there, etc., you'd be likely to knock your preclear flat at some point. I am not advising you to use this form of Opening Procedure. It's a violent process. If you get almost any preclear and just have him stand in the middle of the room, and say "get the idea", to that empty space out in front of you there, "that it's there", it's there, it's there – his mother will show up and eight or nine of his wives and all sorts of other things will show up all the way down the line. He'll have all kinds of people standing in front of him.

Alfred Korzybski in General Semantics was very careful to demonstrate that two objects could not occupy the same space. In other words, he was dramatizing "Preserve the universe, preserve the universe, preserve the universe". Now this statement tells you that if two objects can occupy the same space you haven't got a universe, and sure enough if you just ask a preclear repetitively: "What object can occupy the same space you're occupying?" he'll work at it and he'll work at it and work at it, and the first thing you know, why, he's capable of doing many things which he was not able to do before. His space straightens out.

They're all "there". But that's the only crime a thetan can commit. It's a lie, you see. That theta can be there is a lie, and that's the only bad thing that anybody has ever done is to be there. Now, that's all, actually, that the body is doing. He's got a body and he's visible. He is being there.

He can create space again – merely because this MEST universe has been telling him so often that two objects cannot occupy the same space, he has begun to believe it. And he believes this is the most thorough law that he has. So we find a person perfectly contentedly being in a body believing he is a body. Why, he knows that he, a thetan, could not occupy the same space as a body. He knows this is impossible. Two objects can't occupy the same space.

And we must have introduced a lie. And the basic lie which is introduced is Time.

He's an object, and his body's an object, so the two can't occupy the same space.

It is interesting to note that it is the second postulate which persists, because persist means time, and it's the second postulate which introduces time, and this becomes elementary.

This is very interesting because you'll find that two universes can occupy the same space and actually do occupy the same space. You'll find the universe of a thetan is occupying the same space as the physical universe, but once he declares that the both of them are occupying the same space, you get an interesting condition.

Now let's look at this one: let's take this fellow who's awfully sick. He's terribly sick. Boy, is he a problem. He's a problem to himself, a problem to his family, and a problem to his auditor. He is a problem. He's terrific.

Now, I'm not going to try to take up at this point the perfect duplicate but it's enough just to say that two objects are occupying that space – identically occupying that space – and poof, it's gone. That's the way you make things vanish. That is to get its As-is-ness, and this is why As-is-ness works and why things disappear when you get their As-is-ness. This is an important Axiom.

You know that he must have had an original postulate that he was well before he could make the second postulate that he was sick. And you know the postulate that he was sick must have denied the postulate that he was well, and so his original sickness was a falsity and he knew it at the time he made it – he actually knew it well. He knew – when he said he was sick that day to keep from going to school – that it was a lie. He knew it was a lie and he got a persistence of the sickness and now here he is eighty-nine years of age and all crippled up and we find out that the basic postulate was the fact that he was well. How could sickness ever get any power except through wellness? Now we look underneath every lie to find out that it was the truth – the Static itself – which gave it power. The lie has no power itself because it is a perversion. Persistence has no power that is not based on the Static itself. So we have the basic lineup at all times and in all places, that the lie is empowered by truth. Truth must have existed and a good condition or quality must have existed prior to a bad condition or quality.

Now here is the oldest thing that Man knows: Axiom Thirteen: The cycle of action of the physical universe is: create, survive (persist), destroy.

As we study the problem of goodness and badness in the world, we find out that we must be studying the second postulate, because that is all that persists.

Now, that's the oldest thing Man knows, that it went on the basis of death, birth, growth, decay, death, birth, growth, decay, death, birth, growth, decay and so on. He knew he had time involved here, on a linear line. The odd thing here is that you've got to postulate death to get a cycle of action, and you've got to postulate time to get a linear line, so we're dealing here with one of the most intimate things of existence. We find this by the way in the Rig-Veda. It's been with Man about 10,000 years that I know of and we find that this is the cycle of action of the physical universe – create, survive destroy.

Now let's take a situation where something is persisting – and it's good. We could say that that looks as if it must have been based upon a prime postulate which was bad. But you can't make a prime postulate which is a lie. If you'll just get the idea that there are no postulates, that you've made no postulates of any kind, that there are no postulates which have been made – now make a postulate. That would be a prime postulate. That postulate can't be a lie. Now make a second postulate denying the one you just made. That's a lie. Now which one of these two is going to persist? Of course the second one. And it is going to get its power from the first postulate.

In Dianetics, I isolated just one portion of this line as a common denominator of all existence, which was Survive, and sure enough any life form is surviving. It is trying to survive and that is its normal push forward. And that has, incidentally, terrific impact, but this has two other parts and those are create and destroy. Create, survive, destroy. And survive merely means persist. So all of these things are based on time, and we have underlying Axiom Thirteen this primary consideration that there is time.

It would not matter what the prime postulate was. That is not the point, here. We're not going on the basis of badness or goodness. A consideration is a consideration.

Now we can go on and find that the conditions of existence fit these various portions of the survival curve. And this would be given as follows: Axiom Fourteen: Survival is accomplished by alter-is-Ness and Not-Is-Ness, by which is gained the persistency known as time.

Now, do we mean reach back on the track, and find these postulates? – reach back and run it out with straight-wire? No, because there is no time, and all address to the past – every address to the past and every address to the future actually is validating a lie. There's only now. There's never been anything else but now. There's a consistent change and a consistent series of postulates going on which give us a continuance of now, but the continuance of now is a lie.

That's a mechanical persistency. In other words we keep changing things, saying they aren't, and changing them, and then pushing them out and re-forming them and trying to vanish them. Using energy to fight energy, we'll certainly get survival. We'll get persistency.

You can move objects around. That's quite honest compared to a contradiction, but we're looking at two kinds of a lie here. We discover that when we are trying to make a condition change we simply have to postulate, as though it exists in present time, the opposite condition.

Axiom Fifteen: Creation is accomplished by the postulation of an As-Is-Ness.

So somebody who hates the human race – he must have loved them desperately by prior postulate. There's no hatred like that which can exist between two brothers or a nation torn asunder in war. Well, that's because they loved each other so well, you see. And so they can hate with violence. But what is their hatred depending on but the fact that they loved each other? So if we have somebody hating madly somebody named Bill – we would say, "Now, get the idea of loving Bill." Grrrrr, he'd go. "Now, get the idea of loving Bill." Grrrr. "Get the idea of loving Bill." Grr. "Get the idea of loving Bill." "Well, he's not too bad a guy." We wouldn't necessarily restore love, but we'd certainly run out the hatred for Bill.

Now all you have to say actually is: "Space, energy, time, As-is. That's the way it is, and, it's now going to persist." You've added time to it. If you immediately after that simply looked at it and got its As-is-ness again it would vanish. All you had to do is get it in the same instant of time with the same time of postulate and it would disappear. You could create it again and it would disappear. It would As-is.

Axiom Sixteen: Complete destruction is accomplished by the postulation of the As-Is-Ness of any existence and the parts thereof.

Complete destruction would simply be vanishment. You wouldn't have any rubble left. When you blow something up with guns you get rubble. Ask anybody who was in the last war. There were certainly an awful lot of broken bricks lying around. If anybody had really been working at this in a good sensible way, and he'd really meant total destruction, he would have simply gotten the As-is-ness of the situation and it would have been gone and that would have been the end of that. If he'd wanted to declare the whole As-is-ness of a country, if he'd been able to span that much attention and trace back that many particles that fast to their original points of creation, he would of course have a vanishment and that is complete destruction. So complete destruction is As-is-ness, and As-is-ness is simply a postulated existence.

What we're looking at most of the time in this universe is: Axiom Seventeen: The static, having postulated As-Is-Ness then practices Alter-Is-Ness and so achieves the apparency of Is-Ness and so obtains reality.

In other words we get a continuous alteration, and we get this apparency called Is-ness.

Axiom Eighteen: The static, in practicing Not-Is-Ness, brings about the persistence of unwanted existences, and so brings about unreality, which includes forgetfulness, unconsciousness, and other undesirable states.

Quite an important Axiom and a very true one.

Axiom Nineteen: Bringing the static to view as-is any condition devaluates that condition.