SCIENTOLOGY AND ABILITY | SCIENTOLOGY AND ABILITY |
on the 23 February 1955 | on the 23 February 1955 |
The title of the lecture tonight was about as broad as it could be made, which is Scientology and Health. But many people might have the feeling that when we talk about Scientology we are actually talking about health. These are not synonymous. And I want to talk to you tonight to make that fairly clear. These are not synonymous. | The title of the lecture tonight was about as broad as it could be made, which is Scientology and Health. But many people might have the feeling that when we talk about Scientology we are actually talking about health. These are not synonymous. And I want to talk to you tonight to make that fairly clear. These are not synonymous. |
Scientology embraces within its confines a great deal of material about health. But then so would any humanity which worked. The fact of the matter is that Scientology and ability, as I have talked to you about before, is a little more germane to the situation, because health is only one of the factors which reduces ability. When we look at the whole field of ability we discover that there are numerous reasons why people are not able. And amongst these reasons, first and foremost, we have inability, which is not necessarily health. | Scientology embraces within its confines a great deal of material about health. But then so would any humanity which worked. The fact of the matter is that Scientology and ability, as I have talked to you about before, is a little more germane to the situation, because health is only one of the factors which reduces ability. When we look at the whole field of ability we discover that there are numerous reasons why people are not able. And amongst these reasons, first and foremost, we have inability, which is not necessarily health. |
An individual may be suffering from mother-in-law-osis. And he goes to work in the morning, and he’s working in this drill press, you know? He’s working on the drill press, he punches it down and so on. „Two more weeks, and she said she was leaving last week see.“ Grrrr! Well that spoils that plate, you see? And he’s always got a beef of this character when he comes to work, and he generally spoils the drill press every tenth day. Well there’s nothing wrong really with this man’s health. That will come later. But there is something wrong with his ability. His ability to work has very definitely undermined. Not by mother in law, but by his intolerance of mother in laws. | An individual may be suffering from mother-in-law-osis. And he goes to work in the morning, and he’s working in this drill press, you know? He’s working on the drill press, he punches it down and so on. „Two more weeks, and she said she was leaving last week see.“ Grrrr! Well that spoils that plate, you see? And he’s always got a beef of this character when he comes to work, and he generally spoils the drill press every tenth day. Well there’s nothing wrong really with this man’s health. That will come later. But there is something wrong with his ability. His ability to work has very definitely undermined. Not by mother in law, but by his intolerance of mother in laws. |
Now we don’t say that Scientology has as its mission the bringing into tolerance of all son in laws on the subject of mother in laws. But if Scientology were being run by mother in laws it would have this as its goal. Furthermore, if Scientology were run by son in laws, they would have as their goal for Scientology that its total capability should be the dismissal, eradication and push-away-ness of mother in laws. So we could have a numerous array of goals from simply one central working pivot. And the central working pivot of Scientology is a very simple pivot. | Now we don’t say that Scientology has as its mission the bringing into tolerance of all son in laws on the subject of mother in laws. But if Scientology were being run by mother in laws it would have this as its goal. Furthermore, if Scientology were run by son in laws, they would have as their goal for Scientology that its total capability should be the dismissal, eradication and push-away-ness of mother in laws. So we could have a numerous array of goals from simply one central working pivot. And the central working pivot of Scientology is a very simple pivot. |
It is the methodology of the exact sciences applied to the humanities. I’m telling you the truth now. That is what it is. Scientology is the methodology normally associated with physics, chemistry, and mathematics, which are precision sciences, applied to the humanities, which have always heretofore been considered imprecise at best. | It is the methodology of the exact sciences applied to the humanities. I’m telling you the truth now. That is what it is. Scientology is the methodology normally associated with physics, chemistry, and mathematics, which are precision sciences, applied to the humanities, which have always heretofore been considered imprecise at best. |
You see, methodology is not necessarily mechanistic. It is merely precise. If we were to discover anything about the humanities it would be little enough to ask that those who indulged in this investigation should have some education in physics, which would give them a sum command of the composition of the real universe. Of chemistry, which would give them some command of the exact materiel of the structure in which they were dabbling. And of mathematics, which would give them a discipline of thought, competent to evaluate for them the solutions which they thought they had arrived at. The smallest thing that could be demanded of anyone researching into any field would be one, some idea of the universe in which that field existed. In this case, the material universe, the physical universe. And that takes a physicist. Or a background in physics. The next that would be required would be as I said again, just the ingredients of the structure itself. And lastly, that a precision of thought, a precision which has been evolved very carefully down through many, many ages. And which is called now mathematics. That this precision and discipline should be applied to the subject which was being studied. And if these things are now available to man, physics, the actual composition of matter, and the methodology of thinking over problems as represented by mathematics; if these things are now available to man, if that field which sought to continue predominance in the field of the humanities or thinkingness, which would be psychology, sociology and medicine, and if these wish to continue their dominance in that field of human thought or beingness, the very least one would expect would that a psychologist would be trained in the scientific methodology of one, mathematics, two, chemistry, and three, physics. That would be the least one would demand of him. | You see, methodology is not necessarily mechanistic. It is merely precise. If we were to discover anything about the humanities it would be little enough to ask that those who indulged in this investigation should have some education in physics, which would give them a sum command of the composition of the real universe. Of chemistry, which would give them some command of the exact materiel of the structure in which they were dabbling. And of mathematics, which would give them a discipline of thought, competent to evaluate for them the solutions which they thought they had arrived at. The smallest thing that could be demanded of anyone researching into any field would be one, some idea of the universe in which that field existed. In this case, the material universe, the physical universe. And that takes a physicist. Or a background in physics. The next that would be required would be as I said again, just the ingredients of the structure itself. And lastly, that a precision of thought, a precision which has been evolved very carefully down through many, many ages. And which is called now mathematics. That this precision and discipline should be applied to the subject which was being studied. And if these things are now available to man, physics, the actual composition of matter, and the methodology of thinking over problems as represented by mathematics; if these things are now available to man, if that field which sought to continue predominance in the field of the humanities or thinkingness, which would be psychology, sociology and medicine, and if these wish to continue their dominance in that field of human thought or beingness, the very least one would expect would that a psychologist would be trained in the scientific methodology of one, mathematics, two, chemistry, and three, physics. That would be the least one would demand of him. |
Now in sociology, if one were to study sociology we would fully expect then anyone really equipped to do that would have available to him all the tools which were available to him in the society today, which would be mathematics, chemistry and physics. And we would expect that anyone handling a machine known as the human body, which operates entirely on physical principles which obey the laws to be found in elementary physics, would be educated in the field of physics in order to understand the mechanical aspect of the human body. And that would be a doctor of medicine. Ah, but the doctor of medicine is not a physicist, and would be the most shocked person in the world if you were to inform him, „You sir, to continue dabbling around with bodies, should have some idea of the mechanical principles at least involved in muscles.“ You see a muscle is a very interesting mechanical thing. It changes the mass in an area, and so gets a contraction. It changes the mass and gets an expansion. If you didn’t know anything about machines at all, and you were trying to understand muscles, you’d just have to quit. You’d just have to take a medical view of the whole thing. | Now in sociology, if one were to study sociology we would fully expect then anyone really equipped to do that would have available to him all the tools which were available to him in the society today, which would be mathematics, chemistry and physics. And we would expect that anyone handling a machine known as the human body, which operates entirely on physical principles which obey the laws to be found in elementary physics, would be educated in the field of physics in order to understand the mechanical aspect of the human body. And that would be a doctor of medicine. Ah, but the doctor of medicine is not a physicist, and would be the most shocked person in the world if you were to inform him, „You sir, to continue dabbling around with bodies, should have some idea of the mechanical principles at least involved in muscles.“ You see a muscle is a very interesting mechanical thing. It changes the mass in an area, and so gets a contraction. It changes the mass and gets an expansion. If you didn’t know anything about machines at all, and you were trying to understand muscles, you’d just have to quit. You’d just have to take a medical view of the whole thing. |
Now here then we had available in this society well developed by many, many brilliant men including Newton, Halley, and even Einstein of today. We had methodology, methods of doing things, methods of thinking about things. And in 1947; I well remember this because it was merely an echo of 1932 when I first tried it; I said to a psychologist who was studying for and had just about received his doctorate in psychology, I said to him, „Of course if you apply the Eisenberg principles of uncertainty to your statistics,“ and he says, „Apply what?“ And I said, „If you did an actuarial account of these phenomena,“ and he said, „What?“ And I said, „If you lined this stuff up and got smart about it,“ and he said, „What are you talking about?“ And I said, „I’m talking about mathematics. What are you talking about?“ And the fellow said, „Ho! We never study mathematics!“ And I said, „Then how can you possibly be a statistician if you don’t know anything about mathematics?“ „Oh,“ he said, „a statistician has nothing to do with mathematics, he has to do with statistics!“ I hadn’t noticed that the trees around me were the flora of the Belgian Congo, but I definitely felt in a foreign and strange land. | Now here then we had available in this society well developed by many, many brilliant men including Newton, Halley, and even Einstein of today. We had methodology, methods of doing things, methods of thinking about things. And in 1947; I well remember this because it was merely an echo of 1932 when I first tried it; I said to a psychologist who was studying for and had just about received his doctorate in psychology, I said to him, „Of course if you apply the Eisenberg principles of uncertainty to your statistics,“ and he says, „Apply what?“ And I said, „If you did an actuarial account of these phenomena,“ and he said, „What?“ And I said, „If you lined this stuff up and got smart about it,“ and he said, „What are you talking about?“ And I said, „I’m talking about mathematics. What are you talking about?“ And the fellow said, „Ho! We never study mathematics!“ And I said, „Then how can you possibly be a statistician if you don’t know anything about mathematics?“ „Oh,“ he said, „a statistician has nothing to do with mathematics, he has to do with statistics!“ I hadn’t noticed that the trees around me were the flora of the Belgian Congo, but I definitely felt in a foreign and strange land. |
I was demanding of this individual as I demanded in 1932 of the psychology department, Dr. Fred Moss, George Washington University, that he take some of this material which was known in the physics department, and apply it to these experiments which he was busily engaged upon with mice. And I thought that he would discover, if he applied some of this material in the field of physics, I thought he would discover that there were a couple of unreasonable assumptions in the work which was being done. And I called down the faculty coals of fire upon my head. And if I hadn’t been associate editor of the university paper, and if I hadn’t had in my desk more stories I could have published, I would probably have been expelled. For what heresy? The heresy of demanding that all available tools of thinkingness be used to resolve the problems of thinkingness. And I was unfortunately, as a sophomore in a university, fixed with this idea that all the tools of thinkingness should be used if one were to resolve the problems of thinkingness. And that seemed to me to be a terrifically logical conclusion. And I found out as the years went along, ‘til 1947 when I abandoned any idea to introduce this revolutionary principle into the field of psychology, I discovered that nothing was more antipathetic or foreign to the field of the humanities than physics and its methodology, chemistry and its methodology, and mathematics and their methodology. And having discovered that fact, I was left with a few staunch friends to paddle the canoe called Dianetics, which was the first representation of an organized body of evaluated information concerning thinkingness, arrived at by applying the principles of thinkingness to thinkingness. | I was demanding of this individual as I demanded in 1932 of the psychology department, Dr. Fred Moss, George Washington University, that he take some of this material which was known in the physics department, and apply it to these experiments which he was busily engaged upon with mice. And I thought that he would discover, if he applied some of this material in the field of physics, I thought he would discover that there were a couple of unreasonable assumptions in the work which was being done. And I called down the faculty coals of fire upon my head. And if I hadn’t been associate editor of the university paper, and if I hadn’t had in my desk more stories I could have published, I would probably have been expelled. For what heresy? The heresy of demanding that all available tools of thinkingness be used to resolve the problems of thinkingness. And I was unfortunately, as a sophomore in a university, fixed with this idea that all the tools of thinkingness should be used if one were to resolve the problems of thinkingness. And that seemed to me to be a terrifically logical conclusion. And I found out as the years went along, ‘til 1947 when I abandoned any idea to introduce this revolutionary principle into the field of psychology, I discovered that nothing was more antipathetic or foreign to the field of the humanities than physics and its methodology, chemistry and its methodology, and mathematics and their methodology. And having discovered that fact, I was left with a few staunch friends to paddle the canoe called Dianetics, which was the first representation of an organized body of evaluated information concerning thinkingness, arrived at by applying the principles of thinkingness to thinkingness. |
Scientology says this much more sharply than Dianetics. Dianetics means through mind. Scientology simply means wisdom, study of. But it could also be said to mean this: The application of the methodologies of science to the problems of the mind. And that is what it is, and that very truthfully is what has happened. | Scientology says this much more sharply than Dianetics. Dianetics means through mind. Scientology simply means wisdom, study of. But it could also be said to mean this: The application of the methodologies of science to the problems of the mind. And that is what it is, and that very truthfully is what has happened. |
A great many things could have been applied, but the odd part of it is that wherever we have discovered the various principles of science itself as represented by the exact sciences, to be disobeyed or upset, we have looked very hard. And we have only found one discrepancy in the sciences themselves. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, the ninth edition, the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth, thirteenth, the article time and space is of tremendous interest to anyone. It gives, written back about 1875, it gives into the problems of physics the entire problem of the human mind and its activities. It’s an article called Time and Space. And it’s in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which ran for many editions and may still be there, only I don’t have one of the newest editions. | A great many things could have been applied, but the odd part of it is that wherever we have discovered the various principles of science itself as represented by the exact sciences, to be disobeyed or upset, we have looked very hard. And we have only found one discrepancy in the sciences themselves. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, the ninth edition, the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth, thirteenth, the article time and space is of tremendous interest to anyone. It gives, written back about 1875, it gives into the problems of physics the entire problem of the human mind and its activities. It’s an article called Time and Space. And it’s in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which ran for many editions and may still be there, only I don’t have one of the newest editions. |
The article says that before physics can advance beyond its assumption that there is space, that there is energy and that there is matter, before physics can advance beyond this assumption, it must discover and study that which perceives space, energy and matter. In other words, it says before physics can go any further than simply saying, „There’s space, there’s energy, there are objects, there is motion, there are vectors,“ before physics can say any more than this it has to invade and resolve the problem of the human mind. That was a challenge laid down by a writer whose name I unfortunately do not know, in 1875 or thereabouts, and which was published consistently in the Encyclopedia Britannica. | The article says that before physics can advance beyond its assumption that there is space, that there is energy and that there is matter, before physics can advance beyond this assumption, it must discover and study that which perceives space, energy and matter. In other words, it says before physics can go any further than simply saying, „There’s space, there’s energy, there are objects, there is motion, there are vectors,“ before physics can say any more than this it has to invade and resolve the problem of the human mind. That was a challenge laid down by a writer whose name I unfortunately do not know, in 1875 or thereabouts, and which was published consistently in the Encyclopedia Britannica. |
It was not until 1932 that anybody picked up this glove. And it was a rather hot glove if I may say so. But there one was confronted with this fact: We either accepted conservation of energy and said that all life was built out of this accidentally created, some how or another lying there, space and energy, and that life itself had evolved from a great many of these electrons and morons. Life itself had to evolve from that, or it was something else, which did not evolve out of matter. The assumption, the basic assumption of biology is; that’s modern biology. Fortunately in a few years they’ll have to change that. The assumption is that there was a bunch of mud. And one day a piece of this mud un-mudded, and we had man. A most unreasonable assumption, since more, since even older thought and more searching thought had many years before Darwin consistently speculated on this fact: That space, energy and matter were phenomena of perception. There is space because we see space. There is energy because we perceive energy. There is matter because we agree that something is solid, and sitting there in that space. And long before biology jumped on to this mud band wagon, better thinkers had assumed consistently that perception of the matter was more important than the matter itself. I tell you, the movie that you cannot see is of no use to you at all. You have to be able to see the movie to believe in it or think anything about it, or have much of an opinion about it. If the real universe were here, none of us could perceive it. I’m afraid it would be of no use to any of us, ‘cause we couldn’t use it. So, why should it be here? Well why is the universe here? And we go back across the same bridge to the other side, we say that the universe is here because we perceive it. And we agree that we perceive it. | It was not until 1932 that anybody picked up this glove. And it was a rather hot glove if I may say so. But there one was confronted with this fact: We either accepted conservation of energy and said that all life was built out of this accidentally created, some how or another lying there, space and energy, and that life itself had evolved from a great many of these electrons and morons. Life itself had to evolve from that, or it was something else, which did not evolve out of matter. The assumption, the basic assumption of biology is; that’s modern biology. Fortunately in a few years they’ll have to change that. The assumption is that there was a bunch of mud. And one day a piece of this mud un-mudded, and we had man. A most unreasonable assumption, since more, since even older thought and more searching thought had many years before Darwin consistently speculated on this fact: That space, energy and matter were phenomena of perception. There is space because we see space. There is energy because we perceive energy. There is matter because we agree that something is solid, and sitting there in that space. And long before biology jumped on to this mud band wagon, better thinkers had assumed consistently that perception of the matter was more important than the matter itself. I tell you, the movie that you cannot see is of no use to you at all. You have to be able to see the movie to believe in it or think anything about it, or have much of an opinion about it. If the real universe were here, none of us could perceive it. I’m afraid it would be of no use to any of us, ‘cause we couldn’t use it. So, why should it be here? Well why is the universe here? And we go back across the same bridge to the other side, we say that the universe is here because we perceive it. And we agree that we perceive it. |
In auditing, in processing preclears, it is very, very usual for an auditor to discover the astonishing thing that the world has suddenly blinked out on his preclear, his patient. It’s gone. The fellow is looking through the body and through the wall. Or through Earth. And the preclear has to some how or another, theta wise, not as a body, but he has to sort of take his machinery and get it into adjustment again so that he is perfectly in agreement that there are bodies, that there are floors, that there are walls. And when he’s got this tuned up again, he’s got a universe. But he can un-tune it with the greatest of ease. | In auditing, in processing preclears, it is very, very usual for an auditor to discover the astonishing thing that the world has suddenly blinked out on his preclear, his patient. It’s gone. The fellow is looking through the body and through the wall. Or through Earth. And the preclear has to some how or another, theta wise, not as a body, but he has to sort of take his machinery and get it into adjustment again so that he is perfectly in agreement that there are bodies, that there are floors, that there are walls. And when he’s got this tuned up again, he’s got a universe. But he can un-tune it with the greatest of ease. |
Now this becomes very fascinating. Becomes very fascinating. It tells you that Scientology is the grand daddy of biology. It is a longer study. It has a better foundation, and it is based on more secure fundamentals than the biology which is today taught in the local high schools and universities of the country. That’s not even an adventurous statement. Biology is a Johnnie come lately. It is preceded by chemistry. It is preceded by physics, and by mathematics. | Now this becomes very fascinating. Becomes very fascinating. It tells you that Scientology is the grand daddy of biology. It is a longer study. It has a better foundation, and it is based on more secure fundamentals than the biology which is today taught in the local high schools and universities of the country. That’s not even an adventurous statement. Biology is a Johnnie come lately. It is preceded by chemistry. It is preceded by physics, and by mathematics. |
Biology would be very interesting if it did not produce so many confoundedly, unsolvable conundrums! Nothing can call itself a science which is in itself one solid parade of problems with no solutions. A science perforce contains a truth. And a truth means a solution of some kind or another. And when you take a full parade from left to right of nothing but solid problems, and no solutions, and then foist this off on somebody and say, „Look, we have a science.“ It gives to laugh. There’s no science there. There’s the maunderings of a few minds which didn’t like religion when they were young. Biology was born of bad preaching. And in its most dignified form is simply a protest against being that way. | Biology would be very interesting if it did not produce so many confoundedly, unsolvable conundrums! Nothing can call itself a science which is in itself one solid parade of problems with no solutions. A science perforce contains a truth. And a truth means a solution of some kind or another. And when you take a full parade from left to right of nothing but solid problems, and no solutions, and then foist this off on somebody and say, „Look, we have a science.“ It gives to laugh. There’s no science there. There’s the maunderings of a few minds which didn’t like religion when they were young. Biology was born of bad preaching. And in its most dignified form is simply a protest against being that way. |
Let’s take a good look though and find that this huge array of problems exists just because of one factor. And this one factor actually exceeds what physics knew, exceeds what chemistry knew, but does not exceed mathematics, but actually works into and clarifies mathematics. And that is the problem that another factor is apparently present than space, than energy, than matter. A volition, an idea, a demand to live, an ability to resolve problems and pose them to be resolved is evidently present in a living organism. And the last time a rock said to me, „I think,“ was a long time ago. And it was only because my friend that was with me was a ventriloquist. Rocks don’t say, „I think,“ but a living form does. It does think. It does know. It is aware, and it is aware of being aware. And that is life. And that is distinctly different from any other phenomena in physics, chemistry or mathematics. It’s distinctly different. | Let’s take a good look though and find that this huge array of problems exists just because of one factor. And this one factor actually exceeds what physics knew, exceeds what chemistry knew, but does not exceed mathematics, but actually works into and clarifies mathematics. And that is the problem that another factor is apparently present than space, than energy, than matter. A volition, an idea, a demand to live, an ability to resolve problems and pose them to be resolved is evidently present in a living organism. And the last time a rock said to me, „I think,“ was a long time ago. And it was only because my friend that was with me was a ventriloquist. Rocks don’t say, „I think,“ but a living form does. It does think. It does know. It is aware, and it is aware of being aware. And that is life. And that is distinctly different from any other phenomena in physics, chemistry or mathematics. It’s distinctly different. |
Here is the difference. If the biologist wishes to apply, take unto himself and apply physics and chemistry and mathematics to mud, and yet outlaw this one thing „I think“, why he could go on and say that he has a science. But the moment he thinks that the things with which he deals don’t think, and that thought is some sort of an evolved piece of machinery, he is off on an unsolvable way. And so he has arrived, if you can call it an arrival, in a muddle of problems that the best biologist in the world today would not be able to resolve, because he has moved aside and ignored this strange thing, „I think.“ | Here is the difference. If the biologist wishes to apply, take unto himself and apply physics and chemistry and mathematics to mud, and yet outlaw this one thing „I think“, why he could go on and say that he has a science. But the moment he thinks that the things with which he deals don’t think, and that thought is some sort of an evolved piece of machinery, he is off on an unsolvable way. And so he has arrived, if you can call it an arrival, in a muddle of problems that the best biologist in the world today would not be able to resolve, because he has moved aside and ignored this strange thing, „I think.“ |
Now the physicist it not entirely guiltless. The physicist has consistently said, „I like things which are certain, positive, that I can put my hands on and that I can see.“ And that’s almost his by word. That’s the by word of the physical engineer. I’ve got to be able to see it, I’ve got to be able to feel it. And if I can’t see it and feel it, it isn’t. And he made a mistake, because he set aside the obvious thing--he himself was thinking. He forgot this. So he wandered off trace too. | Now the physicist it not entirely guiltless. The physicist has consistently said, „I like things which are certain, positive, that I can put my hands on and that I can see.“ And that’s almost his by word. That’s the by word of the physical engineer. I’ve got to be able to see it, I’ve got to be able to feel it. And if I can’t see it and feel it, it isn’t. And he made a mistake, because he set aside the obvious thing--he himself was thinking. He forgot this. So he wandered off trace too. |
Now the chemist loves to show you that a few chemicals put together in an acid will grow. I had a chemist of some note display this before my eyes, and he was very triumphant about the thing. He put a certain number of chemicals in glass and they grew. They obviously grew, they looked like a little plant growing, growing, growing. And they grew for three days, and they stopped. And then he added some more chemicals, and they grew some more. And he was very triumphant about this. And he said, „Look, look. Virus. The virus level is right there next to the chemical level. They’re right together. And this demonstrates all you need to know about life.“ And I made myself a very unwelcome house guest. I said to him the one thing I shouldn’t have said to him, which is simply this. „What does it think?“ And this was a very desperate and dangerous thing for anybody to do, because it shatters the whole idea. There is no volition. | Now the chemist loves to show you that a few chemicals put together in an acid will grow. I had a chemist of some note display this before my eyes, and he was very triumphant about the thing. He put a certain number of chemicals in glass and they grew. They obviously grew, they looked like a little plant growing, growing, growing. And they grew for three days, and they stopped. And then he added some more chemicals, and they grew some more. And he was very triumphant about this. And he said, „Look, look. Virus. The virus level is right there next to the chemical level. They’re right together. And this demonstrates all you need to know about life.“ And I made myself a very unwelcome house guest. I said to him the one thing I shouldn’t have said to him, which is simply this. „What does it think?“ And this was a very desperate and dangerous thing for anybody to do, because it shatters the whole idea. There is no volition. |
Now Darwin came along. Darwin, back about the time of the Civil War. We forget how antique Darwin is. Back about the time of the American Civil War Darwin came along and he said, „It’s all natural selection and accident. And various characteristics of life combine with various characteristics of life, and these characteristics of life all combine together, and by the accident of something surviving we get the new form. And this is the principle of natural selection, and the survival of the fittest, and that is all there is to it.“ I had a fellow explain to me one time when I was a very little boy. I’m afraid he was being jocular about it, what survival of the fittest was. He said, „Well, a cat had seven kittens and one of the kittens had twelve fits a day, and another one had only two fits a day. And the remainder had no fits a day. Well all the other died off but the one who had twelve fits a day survived. And that’s the survival of the fittest.“ I think he was giving me the rib. Anyway, that by the way makes just as much sense, every bit as much sense as this idea of natural selection. Who can blow up this idea of natural selection to which the biologist still clings? Who could blow this up? Any mathematician could blow this up. | Now Darwin came along. Darwin, back about the time of the Civil War. We forget how antique Darwin is. Back about the time of the American Civil War Darwin came along and he said, „It’s all natural selection and accident. And various characteristics of life combine with various characteristics of life, and these characteristics of life all combine together, and by the accident of something surviving we get the new form. And this is the principle of natural selection, and the survival of the fittest, and that is all there is to it.“ I had a fellow explain to me one time when I was a very little boy. I’m afraid he was being jocular about it, what survival of the fittest was. He said, „Well, a cat had seven kittens and one of the kittens had twelve fits a day, and another one had only two fits a day. And the remainder had no fits a day. Well all the other died off but the one who had twelve fits a day survived. And that’s the survival of the fittest.“ I think he was giving me the rib. Anyway, that by the way makes just as much sense, every bit as much sense as this idea of natural selection. Who can blow up this idea of natural selection to which the biologist still clings? Who could blow this up? Any mathematician could blow this up. |
You take a mathematician who is trained in actuarial work. He does computations of the magnitude required by big insurance companies. He could look this over and he’d say, „Hey. How many characteristics are possible? How many characteristics exist? How many species then would have had to have been developed to produce the ability in a cat of hearing?“ And he gets some horrible number which he just writes one, you see, and then sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, and then puts nth power on the end of it. | You take a mathematician who is trained in actuarial work. He does computations of the magnitude required by big insurance companies. He could look this over and he’d say, „Hey. How many characteristics are possible? How many characteristics exist? How many species then would have had to have been developed to produce the ability in a cat of hearing?“ And he gets some horrible number which he just writes one, you see, and then sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, sets of zero, and then puts nth power on the end of it. |
Natural selection works out perfectly, unless you put it to the test of mathematics. And you discover that Earth has not been alive long enough to make the evolution of its earliest beings possible. It’s not been alive long enough for natural selection ever to have taken place. There have not been enough accidents. There have not been enough accidental third horns, you know, to find out that you don’t need a third horn. You know? This is real wild. But it doesn’t just shoot to pieces. The whole argument collapses the second it’s put to the test of modern mathematics. Well maybe only Newton in his day could have computed in the field of calculus, and maybe only Newton could have figured out this, but fortunately Newton and others following him have given us enough mathematics to be able to compute such things. And we discover that natural selection is not a tenable theory, mathematically. | Natural selection works out perfectly, unless you put it to the test of mathematics. And you discover that Earth has not been alive long enough to make the evolution of its earliest beings possible. It’s not been alive long enough for natural selection ever to have taken place. There have not been enough accidents. There have not been enough accidental third horns, you know, to find out that you don’t need a third horn. You know? This is real wild. But it doesn’t just shoot to pieces. The whole argument collapses the second it’s put to the test of modern mathematics. Well maybe only Newton in his day could have computed in the field of calculus, and maybe only Newton could have figured out this, but fortunately Newton and others following him have given us enough mathematics to be able to compute such things. And we discover that natural selection is not a tenable theory, mathematically. |
Now the physicists’ idea of life is no idea at all. He usually and ordinarily wants nothing to do with it. He says, „Actually this is beyond my scope, and the psychologists have it all nailed down.“ No. That’s an unfortunate assumption. Too many specialists sit there, you know. And they say, „Well I know what I’m doing in my field. It’s a good thing we know all there is to know about the whole universe, because the boys over there and the boys over there have it all nailed down.“ | Now the physicists’ idea of life is no idea at all. He usually and ordinarily wants nothing to do with it. He says, „Actually this is beyond my scope, and the psychologists have it all nailed down.“ No. That’s an unfortunate assumption. Too many specialists sit there, you know. And they say, „Well I know what I’m doing in my field. It’s a good thing we know all there is to know about the whole universe, because the boys over there and the boys over there have it all nailed down.“ |
It reminds me of a regiment of marines that went in on a South Pacific island. They had an army division on the right and an army division on the left. And they hit the beach, and they’d been talked to by their commanders, they’d been talked to by their captains, they’d been talked to by their sergeants and their corporals, all of whom has said, „Now boys, this animosity toward the army is something which cannot endure. The pride of the marines demands that you cooperate and that you believe in the army. And you out and take your objectives and they’ll take theirs, and we’ll all be a big happy family.“ And this held perfectly true until the marines were five miles inland with nothing to the right and nothing to the left, because the army hadn’t hit the beach yet. So the marines took the island. But they had no confidence, no confidence, because they discovered with a great shock, an enormous shock, that is wasn’t nailed down there, and it wasn’t nailed down there. And why does the nuclear physicist today, with such aplomb, walk forward toward bigger and better bombs in the hands of, what’d they say, psychology? It’s all nailed down. Psychology’s got it nailed down. They know whether men are sane or not. Psychiatry, they’re all specialists, they’re smart boys just like we are, and here we are together, this big team! Oh that’s wonderful. And all of a sudden one day, he stirs up the soup of the ultimate bomb of bombs that’ll kill all life. You know, the perfect bomb, kill all life in this galaxy, and he stirs it all up and he hands it over. And for the first time he happens to notice the expression on that general’s face. Which is, uggh! It’s probably too late for him to drag back his hand, but psychology wasn’t nailed down. Not a bit of it. I made that horrible; I went along in this happy belief, just like these marines. I just went along just gorgeously. I said, „Well huh. They’ve got all that nailed down, us, a team, you know, and so forth.“ It’s all set. I really didn’t get rid of the idea ‘til 1947. | It reminds me of a regiment of marines that went in on a South Pacific island. They had an army division on the right and an army division on the left. And they hit the beach, and they’d been talked to by their commanders, they’d been talked to by their captains, they’d been talked to by their sergeants and their corporals, all of whom has said, „Now boys, this animosity toward the army is something which cannot endure. The pride of the marines demands that you cooperate and that you believe in the army. And you out and take your objectives and they’ll take theirs, and we’ll all be a big happy family.“ And this held perfectly true until the marines were five miles inland with nothing to the right and nothing to the left, because the army hadn’t hit the beach yet. So the marines took the island. But they had no confidence, no confidence, because they discovered with a great shock, an enormous shock, that is wasn’t nailed down there, and it wasn’t nailed down there. And why does the nuclear physicist today, with such aplomb, walk forward toward bigger and better bombs in the hands of, what’d they say, psychology? It’s all nailed down. Psychology’s got it nailed down. They know whether men are sane or not. Psychiatry, they’re all specialists, they’re smart boys just like we are, and here we are together, this big team! Oh that’s wonderful. And all of a sudden one day, he stirs up the soup of the ultimate bomb of bombs that’ll kill all life. You know, the perfect bomb, kill all life in this galaxy, and he stirs it all up and he hands it over. And for the first time he happens to notice the expression on that general’s face. Which is, uggh! It’s probably too late for him to drag back his hand, but psychology wasn’t nailed down. Not a bit of it. I made that horrible; I went along in this happy belief, just like these marines. I just went along just gorgeously. I said, „Well huh. They’ve got all that nailed down, us, a team, you know, and so forth.“ It’s all set. I really didn’t get rid of the idea ‘til 1947. |
I was very starved for funds in 1947. I was writing in order to cover research expenses, I was conducting something of a practice. I was going along, and working along, and it cost quite a bit of money to research and investigate various fields, particularly since nobody seems to be interested. But I thought they knew, and I thought I’d covered a lot of ground, you see, which had already been covered. And I was just being stupid, you know? I was being real dumb covering this ground, but I had to because I had to, and I went on. And one day I thought, „You know it’d be an awfully nice thing. There’s quite a bit of government money being given in this area for grants, you know, to take care of certain psychological problems in the area. And I can. And these couple of kids that are with me, we can do quite a bit, you know, in the field of straightening out vets and so forth. Why don’t I get some of this money for a grant, and do something of this sort?“ So I investigated this money for the grant, and found out that a sum of eight thousand dollars a month was being invested in a psychological guidance center. And I thought that was very fine, that’s interesting, that’s a hopeful thing, and I went over to the guidance center saying, „Well, we could at least, probably I could learn something from these boy, you know?“ And I could find out what they were doing for these, because this psychological guidance center had been founded to assist the rehabilitation of veterans. So I had a long talk with a fellow, and I was getting the funny feeling that I wasn’t talking to anything somehow or another. Kind of going out in the air. So I finally asked him, I said, „Now what do you do here?“ And he said, „Well we take these people in and we give them a test and so forth. That’s what we do, and that’s what our budget calls for, and that’s eight thousand a month. And we take care of that and that’s what we take care of and that’s what we do. And why are you asking?“ „Well,“ I said, „I just wanted to know what the functions and operations of the center were and what’s demanded of the center, in order to get your appropriation and so forth.“ And I said, „Now let’s go over it again. Now you take these fellows in and you test them, you straighten them out and so on.“ „No,“ he sounded annoyed. „What are you talking about?“ And I said, „Well let me go over this slowly. You get this appropriation from the government, and you run this big center. And you have these tests and these batteries. And the people come in and they take the tests and then you take the tests and you probably forward them over to your other clinical division, and they do…“ „Oh no,“ he says, „there’s no clinical division here.“ „Oh,“ I said, „well somewhere in the city there’s a clinical division.“ „No, no,“ he says, „there’s no; what are you talking about? Clinical division. We haven’t anything to do with clinical psychology!“ And I said, „Well, what are you doing?“ Utterly fabulous! The government was paying this group eight thousand dollars a month just to maintain the premises, to give some personality tests to veterans. And the tests were never forwarded to anybody. Anywhere! And nobody treated the veterans. And nobody did anything for anybody anywhere, but the did the tests and put it in a file, and they didn’t even have a statistician on their payroll to add up the results of the tests! This was wonderful. And I says, „Now I’m crazy. Now I’d better go find an analyst.“ And I went around and consistently and continually looked into this field to find somebody doing something, and it was only then that I determined I’d better not associate the name of what I was doing with the word psychology. I’d better not. | I was very starved for funds in 1947. I was writing in order to cover research expenses, I was conducting something of a practice. I was going along, and working along, and it cost quite a bit of money to research and investigate various fields, particularly since nobody seems to be interested. But I thought they knew, and I thought I’d covered a lot of ground, you see, which had already been covered. And I was just being stupid, you know? I was being real dumb covering this ground, but I had to because I had to, and I went on. And one day I thought, „You know it’d be an awfully nice thing. There’s quite a bit of government money being given in this area for grants, you know, to take care of certain psychological problems in the area. And I can. And these couple of kids that are with me, we can do quite a bit, you know, in the field of straightening out vets and so forth. Why don’t I get some of this money for a grant, and do something of this sort?“ So I investigated this money for the grant, and found out that a sum of eight thousand dollars a month was being invested in a psychological guidance center. And I thought that was very fine, that’s interesting, that’s a hopeful thing, and I went over to the guidance center saying, „Well, we could at least, probably I could learn something from these boy, you know?“ And I could find out what they were doing for these, because this psychological guidance center had been founded to assist the rehabilitation of veterans. So I had a long talk with a fellow, and I was getting the funny feeling that I wasn’t talking to anything somehow or another. Kind of going out in the air. So I finally asked him, I said, „Now what do you do here?“ And he said, „Well we take these people in and we give them a test and so forth. That’s what we do, and that’s what our budget calls for, and that’s eight thousand a month. And we take care of that and that’s what we take care of and that’s what we do. And why are you asking?“ „Well,“ I said, „I just wanted to know what the functions and operations of the center were and what’s demanded of the center, in order to get your appropriation and so forth.“ And I said, „Now let’s go over it again. Now you take these fellows in and you test them, you straighten them out and so on.“ „No,“ he sounded annoyed. „What are you talking about?“ And I said, „Well let me go over this slowly. You get this appropriation from the government, and you run this big center. And you have these tests and these batteries. And the people come in and they take the tests and then you take the tests and you probably forward them over to your other clinical division, and they do…“ „Oh no,“ he says, „there’s no clinical division here.“ „Oh,“ I said, „well somewhere in the city there’s a clinical division.“ „No, no,“ he says, „there’s no; what are you talking about? Clinical division. We haven’t anything to do with clinical psychology!“ And I said, „Well, what are you doing?“ Utterly fabulous! The government was paying this group eight thousand dollars a month just to maintain the premises, to give some personality tests to veterans. And the tests were never forwarded to anybody. Anywhere! And nobody treated the veterans. And nobody did anything for anybody anywhere, but the did the tests and put it in a file, and they didn’t even have a statistician on their payroll to add up the results of the tests! This was wonderful. And I says, „Now I’m crazy. Now I’d better go find an analyst.“ And I went around and consistently and continually looked into this field to find somebody doing something, and it was only then that I determined I’d better not associate the name of what I was doing with the word psychology. I’d better not. |
In the first place, which I didn’t care about, the psychologist would object, but in the second place I wasn’t in an active company if I did, you see? I had just learned that the whole division over here was missing. And if that isn’t a spooky feeling. So I said, „Well, insane, psychiatry, the neurotic and so forth, my old pals William Allen White and Commander Thompson, these boys got that nailed down anyhow. Maybe these fellows can’t do much for active people over here, but this division, that’s solid!“ Where? It was wonderful. | In the first place, which I didn’t care about, the psychologist would object, but in the second place I wasn’t in an active company if I did, you see? I had just learned that the whole division over here was missing. And if that isn’t a spooky feeling. So I said, „Well, insane, psychiatry, the neurotic and so forth, my old pals William Allen White and Commander Thompson, these boys got that nailed down anyhow. Maybe these fellows can’t do much for active people over here, but this division, that’s solid!“ Where? It was wonderful. |
I found out for the first time that they electric shocked the insane. Imagine working for all these years in the mind to realize at last that the treatment which was used was not psycho analysis, which sometimes has some workability, but a couple of electrodes, by a „doctor“ who didn’t know an ohm from a home. Who didn’t; I asked one of them one day, I investigated this field fairly thorough. I asked him, I said, „What voltage do you use?“ And he says, „Position one.“ And I said, „Yeah, well what voltage is that?“ And he says, „What are you talking about?“ | I found out for the first time that they electric shocked the insane. Imagine working for all these years in the mind to realize at last that the treatment which was used was not psycho analysis, which sometimes has some workability, but a couple of electrodes, by a „doctor“ who didn’t know an ohm from a home. Who didn’t; I asked one of them one day, I investigated this field fairly thorough. I asked him, I said, „What voltage do you use?“ And he says, „Position one.“ And I said, „Yeah, well what voltage is that?“ And he says, „What are you talking about?“ |
A boy right here in town by the way, a short time ago, had a machine go out of whack. And I think he killed fifteen or twenty patients before they found out the machine was over loading them. It’s fantastic. | A boy right here in town by the way, a short time ago, had a machine go out of whack. And I think he killed fifteen or twenty patients before they found out the machine was over loading them. It’s fantastic. |
And what about the neurotic? What about this neurotic? Well I found out that is costs nine thousand some-odd dollars to treat a neurotic by psycho analysis. And that it took a period of a couple of years, and at the end of the time he wasn’t well. And I found out there was nothing in that sector. And if you don’t think this didn’t make me feel rather uncomfortably like these marines, with five miles of flank to the right, and five miles off flank to the left, totally exposed! | And what about the neurotic? What about this neurotic? Well I found out that is costs nine thousand some-odd dollars to treat a neurotic by psycho analysis. And that it took a period of a couple of years, and at the end of the time he wasn’t well. And I found out there was nothing in that sector. And if you don’t think this didn’t make me feel rather uncomfortably like these marines, with five miles of flank to the right, and five miles off flank to the left, totally exposed! |
I almost quit. As a matter of fact I did. I went on a yachting trip. I took some money that I should have used on experimentation, and I bought me some stuff, an old pair of boots and a couple of fish hooks, and went yachting. I couldn’t believe all this. It was too much for me. I felt very funny, let me assure you, that myself and my very few associates would be the people who had applied, being very well trained in it, scientific methodology over here to the field of the mind. And that actually this sort of a thing had happened. A fellow, thinking he was in company with a great many people, had wandered on through this dark, dark forest, and through these dark caverns and chasms, and had walked on and on and on, cheerfully thinking that he had somebody over here and somebody over here, and that it was all well covered, and that it was mapped territory. Thinking he was just having to go through this mapped territory, because he was stupid. And finding out that he’d had to cross all this territory, and that there were lions and tigers and everything in it. And he didn’t even have a pop gun! That’s a shock. | I almost quit. As a matter of fact I did. I went on a yachting trip. I took some money that I should have used on experimentation, and I bought me some stuff, an old pair of boots and a couple of fish hooks, and went yachting. I couldn’t believe all this. It was too much for me. I felt very funny, let me assure you, that myself and my very few associates would be the people who had applied, being very well trained in it, scientific methodology over here to the field of the mind. And that actually this sort of a thing had happened. A fellow, thinking he was in company with a great many people, had wandered on through this dark, dark forest, and through these dark caverns and chasms, and had walked on and on and on, cheerfully thinking that he had somebody over here and somebody over here, and that it was all well covered, and that it was mapped territory. Thinking he was just having to go through this mapped territory, because he was stupid. And finding out that he’d had to cross all this territory, and that there were lions and tigers and everything in it. And he didn’t even have a pop gun! That’s a shock. |
When you’re doing original research in the field of the mind and you’ve felt that there are people in the world who can do something for the field of the human mind, you always feel that if you yourself got in too deep or went crazy, or did something of this sort, somebody on the right or left could reach over and say, „That’s alright boy. Run this or that and you’ll straighten out.“ But I finally got to an opinion. One day I was being audited with Dianetics, old time Dianetics, toward the end of 1949. And I was down at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And I’d come out of the classification of almost totally disabled, up to fit for duty. And just on Dianetics, nothing else. And, war casualty. Anyhow, I was all set. I had nothing to do with the mind, I mean they kept putting me down as mentally responsible just to show you how much they knew about it, you know? I’d got a long psychiatric record, by the way, in the navy, all of which says „Mentally responsible, return to duty.“ Any time you come in as a casualty into a naval hospital they usually send around the psychiatrist, you know? And he just checks you off as; and then the clinic for teeth checks you off, and you know, they check you off on all your parts. Grease when another thousand miles have occurred. And they kept writing this down. And a very funny thing. | When you’re doing original research in the field of the mind and you’ve felt that there are people in the world who can do something for the field of the human mind, you always feel that if you yourself got in too deep or went crazy, or did something of this sort, somebody on the right or left could reach over and say, „That’s alright boy. Run this or that and you’ll straighten out.“ But I finally got to an opinion. One day I was being audited with Dianetics, old time Dianetics, toward the end of 1949. And I was down at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And I’d come out of the classification of almost totally disabled, up to fit for duty. And just on Dianetics, nothing else. And, war casualty. Anyhow, I was all set. I had nothing to do with the mind, I mean they kept putting me down as mentally responsible just to show you how much they knew about it, you know? I’d got a long psychiatric record, by the way, in the navy, all of which says „Mentally responsible, return to duty.“ Any time you come in as a casualty into a naval hospital they usually send around the psychiatrist, you know? And he just checks you off as; and then the clinic for teeth checks you off, and you know, they check you off on all your parts. Grease when another thousand miles have occurred. And they kept writing this down. And a very funny thing. |
The only time I ever had any question about my own mind, by the way, just to digress on that basis, I talked to a psychiatrist. They sent me over, I was going through all the clinics, one after the other, in the naval hospital in San Diego. And I went through all these, and I was all set. And I went into the psychiatrist’s office, and he took the piece of paper, and he got to talking about his liver. So I talked to him about his liver, and we had a big conversation about his liver. And it was all very interesting. And I got ready to walk out, and I started to pick the piece of paper up in front of his desk and he said, „Oh no. Wait a moment.“ So he pulled it in close, and he wrote a typical, medical hand, you know, unreadable. And he kept writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing, and he turned it over and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote, and then I said, „Now,“ I said, „Give me that, I’ll put it in my file and take the file back to the ward where it’s…“ „Oh no. This will have to go back by messenger.“ Well that was late afternoon when that occurred, and I went back to my ward saying, „Do you supposed there really is something? After all, it’s been a long war. I had never quite been certain whether or not the war isn’t unsettling. Do you suppose it’s happened at last?“ And all that, and I lay there and worried. | The only time I ever had any question about my own mind, by the way, just to digress on that basis, I talked to a psychiatrist. They sent me over, I was going through all the clinics, one after the other, in the naval hospital in San Diego. And I went through all these, and I was all set. And I went into the psychiatrist’s office, and he took the piece of paper, and he got to talking about his liver. So I talked to him about his liver, and we had a big conversation about his liver. And it was all very interesting. And I got ready to walk out, and I started to pick the piece of paper up in front of his desk and he said, „Oh no. Wait a moment.“ So he pulled it in close, and he wrote a typical, medical hand, you know, unreadable. And he kept writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing, and he turned it over and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote, and then I said, „Now,“ I said, „Give me that, I’ll put it in my file and take the file back to the ward where it’s…“ „Oh no. This will have to go back by messenger.“ Well that was late afternoon when that occurred, and I went back to my ward saying, „Do you supposed there really is something? After all, it’s been a long war. I had never quite been certain whether or not the war isn’t unsettling. Do you suppose it’s happened at last?“ And all that, and I lay there and worried. |
Next morning I dreamed up an appointment with the dental clinic, so that the ward would have to give me my record. And I got outside, and I quick as a flash slipped behind a bush, sat down on a bench, opened it up, started to try to read this. Most horrible garbage you ever tried to wade through, you know? And I turned it over, and I couldn’t make head or tail out of it. And I said, „Well I’m gone, I’m done.“ I was almost sold the middle of the last page, ‘til I noticed the last paragraph. And it says, „No, no psychotic or neurotic tendencies of any kind whatsoever.“ But it took him a page and a half of bad writing to say so. So well, I said to myself, „That’s the last time I’ll ever worry about my mind.“ Until I was at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and I had an auditor, and this auditor was running me through an early incident, a tonsillectomy. And time was growing short and I had to report to the hospital that day. They were checking me over for retirement, whether they were going to return me to duty or retire me. And this auditor was working away and working away, but this was a tough engram. Real tough. We weren’t doing too well on it. So he says, „Well I’ll finish it up this afternoon when you come back.“ So I walked with the ether mask, and I got down to the hospital. And of course you could realize that going to the hospital, having had my tonsils out in the hospital was the most gorgeous piece of restimulation you ever wanted to see. And I walked down the hall, and walked down the hall, and the hall started to go this way, and then the floor started to ripple. And I said, „Well, now I know I’m going mad.“ And I leaned heavily on a door trying to steady myself, saying, „Well I’ll just have to kind of quit right here in my tracks.“ And I raised my face and I saw the legend on that door. And it said „Psychiatric Clinic.“ So I straightened myself up, and walked on down the hall. | Next morning I dreamed up an appointment with the dental clinic, so that the ward would have to give me my record. And I got outside, and I quick as a flash slipped behind a bush, sat down on a bench, opened it up, started to try to read this. Most horrible garbage you ever tried to wade through, you know? And I turned it over, and I couldn’t make head or tail out of it. And I said, „Well I’m gone, I’m done.“ I was almost sold the middle of the last page, ‘til I noticed the last paragraph. And it says, „No, no psychotic or neurotic tendencies of any kind whatsoever.“ But it took him a page and a half of bad writing to say so. So well, I said to myself, „That’s the last time I’ll ever worry about my mind.“ Until I was at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and I had an auditor, and this auditor was running me through an early incident, a tonsillectomy. And time was growing short and I had to report to the hospital that day. They were checking me over for retirement, whether they were going to return me to duty or retire me. And this auditor was working away and working away, but this was a tough engram. Real tough. We weren’t doing too well on it. So he says, „Well I’ll finish it up this afternoon when you come back.“ So I walked with the ether mask, and I got down to the hospital. And of course you could realize that going to the hospital, having had my tonsils out in the hospital was the most gorgeous piece of restimulation you ever wanted to see. And I walked down the hall, and walked down the hall, and the hall started to go this way, and then the floor started to ripple. And I said, „Well, now I know I’m going mad.“ And I leaned heavily on a door trying to steady myself, saying, „Well I’ll just have to kind of quit right here in my tracks.“ And I raised my face and I saw the legend on that door. And it said „Psychiatric Clinic.“ So I straightened myself up, and walked on down the hall. |
Very, very interesting. Field of scientific methodology. Actually in all this research and investigation I never looked upon myself as anything but a fellow, you know, just kind of trying to get along. Doing his job at his own frame of reference. Nothing very romantic about it, except you keep falling in snake pits. And that I was applying what I knew about existence and that in which I’d been trained. I was applying it as well as I could to the problems of humanity. And it’s been a consistent shock up to about last year, to discover that psychology, for instance, believes that somebody who isn’t trained as a psychologist is interloping into the field of humanities. How in the name of god can a human being interlope into the field of the humanities? How could you possibly trespass unless you were dead? Now that’s what we object to. A baseball hits us in the middle of the forehead, something has interloped into the field of humanity. And we object to that, don’t we? I have not gone so far as to say that all mass and all life is solid to a psychiatrist, but it does seem that way. You can’t interlope into the field of the humanities. | Very, very interesting. Field of scientific methodology. Actually in all this research and investigation I never looked upon myself as anything but a fellow, you know, just kind of trying to get along. Doing his job at his own frame of reference. Nothing very romantic about it, except you keep falling in snake pits. And that I was applying what I knew about existence and that in which I’d been trained. I was applying it as well as I could to the problems of humanity. And it’s been a consistent shock up to about last year, to discover that psychology, for instance, believes that somebody who isn’t trained as a psychologist is interloping into the field of humanities. How in the name of god can a human being interlope into the field of the humanities? How could you possibly trespass unless you were dead? Now that’s what we object to. A baseball hits us in the middle of the forehead, something has interloped into the field of humanity. And we object to that, don’t we? I have not gone so far as to say that all mass and all life is solid to a psychiatrist, but it does seem that way. You can’t interlope into the field of the humanities. |
The problems of the humanities, whether you’re trained in that field or not, or the problems of health, whether you’re trained in that field or not, are definitely your problems. They are nobody else’s problems. They are. You’re the one who’s going to get sick. You’re the one that’s got to handle the mind. All day long you’re engaged in running the machinery called a body. Another machine, called your thinkingness or awareness, all day long you’re involved in this. How on Earth, how on Earth would you be interloping in any way, shape or form if you decided to know something more about it? That’s impossible, isn’t it? | The problems of the humanities, whether you’re trained in that field or not, or the problems of health, whether you’re trained in that field or not, are definitely your problems. They are nobody else’s problems. They are. You’re the one who’s going to get sick. You’re the one that’s got to handle the mind. All day long you’re engaged in running the machinery called a body. Another machine, called your thinkingness or awareness, all day long you’re involved in this. How on Earth, how on Earth would you be interloping in any way, shape or form if you decided to know something more about it? That’s impossible, isn’t it? |
It’s like telling a railroad locomotive engineer when he’s sitting in his cab that he’s in the wrong place. And that actually he should be a lunch counter operator in order to understand that engine. | It’s like telling a railroad locomotive engineer when he’s sitting in his cab that he’s in the wrong place. And that actually he should be a lunch counter operator in order to understand that engine. |
You’re very deeply involved in the running and handling of humanity. You wish to control or better and worsen, or worsen the lives of your associates, to some degree or another. Or you’re trying to restrain them from over controlling you. And out of this effort we get the problems of livingness. We have our interplay of association. We have people with whom we work to attain certain goals. I don’t care how lowly one’s job might be here on Earth, it certainly does encompass handling of the physical universe and the handling of people. Even if the only person you have to handle is the time keeper and the foreman, you certainly are involved in handling people. | You’re very deeply involved in the running and handling of humanity. You wish to control or better and worsen, or worsen the lives of your associates, to some degree or another. Or you’re trying to restrain them from over controlling you. And out of this effort we get the problems of livingness. We have our interplay of association. We have people with whom we work to attain certain goals. I don’t care how lowly one’s job might be here on Earth, it certainly does encompass handling of the physical universe and the handling of people. Even if the only person you have to handle is the time keeper and the foreman, you certainly are involved in handling people. |
So when we say something like Scientology and health, when we say this, aren’t we taking an awfully limited view? If I’ve done anything at all in the field of Dianetics and Scientology it’s simply to take methodologies in which I was trained very thoroughly, those of physics, those of mathematics particularly, much more so than chemistry. Take those methodologies and apply it as I saw fit in attempting to understand one of the most tremendous problems that anyone faces. Which is to say, his friend or himself. These are big problems. And you certainly take what you know to resolve these problems. I had the good fortune not to be entirely a stranger to training in the field of the mind, but at the same time it was just as much my business, just as it would be your business, to learn how to handle these mechanical aspects more efficiently, more smoothly. And be yourself less a victim of the chance and ignorance in your vicinity, and more of a victor in the life that you life. This would be the plainest thing in the world. | So when we say something like Scientology and health, when we say this, aren’t we taking an awfully limited view? If I’ve done anything at all in the field of Dianetics and Scientology it’s simply to take methodologies in which I was trained very thoroughly, those of physics, those of mathematics particularly, much more so than chemistry. Take those methodologies and apply it as I saw fit in attempting to understand one of the most tremendous problems that anyone faces. Which is to say, his friend or himself. These are big problems. And you certainly take what you know to resolve these problems. I had the good fortune not to be entirely a stranger to training in the field of the mind, but at the same time it was just as much my business, just as it would be your business, to learn how to handle these mechanical aspects more efficiently, more smoothly. And be yourself less a victim of the chance and ignorance in your vicinity, and more of a victor in the life that you life. This would be the plainest thing in the world. |
Therefore, actually when we say Scientology and health we’re saying the application of Scientology to health. Highly specialized. How would you use the knowingness about living to keep yourself healthy? If you were sick or if your friends were sick, or something, how would you use your knowingness about living? How would you use your knowingness about living to make them well? I’ll tell you that your impulse is not very foreign or not very strange. There is nothing peculiar about your impulse. Any little kid that does comprehend that you don’t feel well will immediately try to make you feel better. Any dog that comes along, if he sees your hand is cut will lick it and look at you sympathetically, saying, „Now does that feel better?“ This isn’t an impulse which is foreign and strange to the most of humanity and is owned as a monopoly by a few. This is something which is part of life itself, trying to make those things around it which are ill healthy again, better. Making things live which are not living so well. This is the best impulse which life has, and is not owned by anyone. | Therefore, actually when we say Scientology and health we’re saying the application of Scientology to health. Highly specialized. How would you use the knowingness about living to keep yourself healthy? If you were sick or if your friends were sick, or something, how would you use your knowingness about living? How would you use your knowingness about living to make them well? I’ll tell you that your impulse is not very foreign or not very strange. There is nothing peculiar about your impulse. Any little kid that does comprehend that you don’t feel well will immediately try to make you feel better. Any dog that comes along, if he sees your hand is cut will lick it and look at you sympathetically, saying, „Now does that feel better?“ This isn’t an impulse which is foreign and strange to the most of humanity and is owned as a monopoly by a few. This is something which is part of life itself, trying to make those things around it which are ill healthy again, better. Making things live which are not living so well. This is the best impulse which life has, and is not owned by anyone. |
All Scientology is is simply the know how which comprised, it is embodied in the physical sciences, applied to these problems. It isn’t applied to these problems via medicine, or via psychology, it’s just here is the clearest thinkingness which man has done. And observedly the most effective thinkingness which man has done, because we now have a culture which is a better culture than those which existed when he didn’t have this thinkingness. The thinkingness, the exact precision thinkingness which are the formulas and understandings of physics, chemistry, mathematics. And here, this itself is thinkingness. So I want to show you something very clearly. That we don’t go from an exact thinkingness over into this field actually called humanities, or psychology. And then back to man again. We don’t go here to go there to come over here to come someplace else. No. | All Scientology is is simply the know how which comprised, it is embodied in the physical sciences, applied to these problems. It isn’t applied to these problems via medicine, or via psychology, it’s just here is the clearest thinkingness which man has done. And observedly the most effective thinkingness which man has done, because we now have a culture which is a better culture than those which existed when he didn’t have this thinkingness. The thinkingness, the exact precision thinkingness which are the formulas and understandings of physics, chemistry, mathematics. And here, this itself is thinkingness. So I want to show you something very clearly. That we don’t go from an exact thinkingness over into this field actually called humanities, or psychology. And then back to man again. We don’t go here to go there to come over here to come someplace else. No. |
What we do is take the clearest thinkingness that we can take, and the clearest way of thinking about things that we can, and applying it directly to the most intimate thing which we have, ourselves, and our friends, and our associates in the society around us. And then so we don’t have a via in Scientology, because all the word Scientology embraces, it’s just the application of scientific methodology to problems. And there aren’t any problems worth thinking about unless the are the problems of life. Life isn’t interested in any other kind of problem. | What we do is take the clearest thinkingness that we can take, and the clearest way of thinking about things that we can, and applying it directly to the most intimate thing which we have, ourselves, and our friends, and our associates in the society around us. And then so we don’t have a via in Scientology, because all the word Scientology embraces, it’s just the application of scientific methodology to problems. And there aren’t any problems worth thinking about unless the are the problems of life. Life isn’t interested in any other kind of problem. |
There are abstract problems. Sometimes a person gets interested in some hypothetical or abstract problem, but the problems which come home to him, the problems in which he’s involved continually are the problems of livingness. And therefore a man has a right to apply the best thinkingness that he can apply, to apply the best knowingness which he can to the most which he is in communication with, which is himself, and his environment. | There are abstract problems. Sometimes a person gets interested in some hypothetical or abstract problem, but the problems which come home to him, the problems in which he’s involved continually are the problems of livingness. And therefore a man has a right to apply the best thinkingness that he can apply, to apply the best knowingness which he can to the most which he is in communication with, which is himself, and his environment. |
We can make health better by the application of this clear look. We can make health better by it. But it’d be a very limited view for us to say, all the time we were walking down the street, that we’re entirely concerned with our health. This is the attitude of a sick man. We might also be entirely concerned with the amount of money in our pockets, but this is a broke man. | We can make health better by the application of this clear look. We can make health better by it. But it’d be a very limited view for us to say, all the time we were walking down the street, that we’re entirely concerned with our health. This is the attitude of a sick man. We might also be entirely concerned with the amount of money in our pockets, but this is a broke man. |
So, our problem in the use of Scientology is simply this. It’s a hard lesson to drive home. It’s almost unstatable. We are talking about thinkingness in the terms of the best and clearest thinkingness which has been done. The exact sciences and mathematics. | So, our problem in the use of Scientology is simply this. It’s a hard lesson to drive home. It’s almost unstatable. We are talking about thinkingness in the terms of the best and clearest thinkingness which has been done. The exact sciences and mathematics. |
Well it wasn’t; actually livingness isn’t as complicated as these sciences. These sciences actually gave, were given into beingness by life itself. And life happens to be simpler. So at first view one would think one would have to be at least a good physicist and a fine chemist and a fine mathematician in order to understand anything about Scientology. No, that’s just how we got to Scientology. And the best thinkingness that had been done by the men that are forbears in the field of the sciences, applied to the problem of the humanities, and gradually an enormous amount of chaff, tremendous non-essentials weeded out and thrown away, weeded out and thrown away. And we get down to the core of the problem, we find out that this one thing is true about life. It is not an object entirely. A human organism is not an object entire. It is an object, it is a body. But there is something in addition there. It thinks. And that makes it quite different from the view taken of this organism by biology. And actually by their own statements, the view taken of this organism by psychologists. Psychologists do not credit the body with the power of thought. They do not credit the body with the power of creating thought. It’s very interesting. They say it is all an associative stimulus response chain of associated reason. And the day when you tell me that all thought there is is associative reason, I will ask you who did the associating to eventually wind up with Shakespeare? | Well it wasn’t; actually livingness isn’t as complicated as these sciences. These sciences actually gave, were given into beingness by life itself. And life happens to be simpler. So at first view one would think one would have to be at least a good physicist and a fine chemist and a fine mathematician in order to understand anything about Scientology. No, that’s just how we got to Scientology. And the best thinkingness that had been done by the men that are forbears in the field of the sciences, applied to the problem of the humanities, and gradually an enormous amount of chaff, tremendous non-essentials weeded out and thrown away, weeded out and thrown away. And we get down to the core of the problem, we find out that this one thing is true about life. It is not an object entirely. A human organism is not an object entire. It is an object, it is a body. But there is something in addition there. It thinks. And that makes it quite different from the view taken of this organism by biology. And actually by their own statements, the view taken of this organism by psychologists. Psychologists do not credit the body with the power of thought. They do not credit the body with the power of creating thought. It’s very interesting. They say it is all an associative stimulus response chain of associated reason. And the day when you tell me that all thought there is is associative reason, I will ask you who did the associating to eventually wind up with Shakespeare? |
Somewhere or another somebody can, has and does think original thoughts. Physicists distrust this. The psychologist has no conversance with this. The chemist, that sounds strange to him. But it’s not strange to the mathematician, for the mathematician is nothing if not a creative artist. If you want to look at some of the greatest fictions ever written look at some of the formulas extant in mathematics. Great, imaginative sky scrapers of pure abstraction, which wind up no place and start at no place. But they are beautiful, utterly beautiful. | Somewhere or another somebody can, has and does think original thoughts. Physicists distrust this. The psychologist has no conversance with this. The chemist, that sounds strange to him. But it’s not strange to the mathematician, for the mathematician is nothing if not a creative artist. If you want to look at some of the greatest fictions ever written look at some of the formulas extant in mathematics. Great, imaginative sky scrapers of pure abstraction, which wind up no place and start at no place. But they are beautiful, utterly beautiful. |
But the mathematician had something there too, which was quite interesting. The mathematician had a wild variable in the field of mathematics, and so we come around to that. And this wild variable was simply that zero, in an absolute form would be a complete zero. It would be a nothingness of where, a nothingness of when and a nothingness of what. And if you put down a zero in a mathematical equation, and do not say a zero of what, you have introduced a wild radical. So the mathematician was not liable to understand life because he didn’t understand one of the commonest symbols he uses, zero. We needn’t go into that any further. It’s quite a problem, the problem of zero. But there’s always a zero of apples, you know? Or a zero of tomorrow. It’s a zero of something, and then he puts it down in his formula just as a goose egg, further unqualified. And if you just put down a goose egg you are saying an absolute, which is a zero of when, zero of where, zero of what. And if that’s an absolute zero and continues to be handled as an absolute zero, alright. The formula will survive. But the very funny part of it is, is the moment that it ceases to be an absolute zero, and the moment when it becomes a zero of something, is not detected by the mathematician. And so when you divide zero by one and multiply it by two and so forth, the wildest and craziest things happen in mathematics that you could possibly envision. | But the mathematician had something there too, which was quite interesting. The mathematician had a wild variable in the field of mathematics, and so we come around to that. And this wild variable was simply that zero, in an absolute form would be a complete zero. It would be a nothingness of where, a nothingness of when and a nothingness of what. And if you put down a zero in a mathematical equation, and do not say a zero of what, you have introduced a wild radical. So the mathematician was not liable to understand life because he didn’t understand one of the commonest symbols he uses, zero. We needn’t go into that any further. It’s quite a problem, the problem of zero. But there’s always a zero of apples, you know? Or a zero of tomorrow. It’s a zero of something, and then he puts it down in his formula just as a goose egg, further unqualified. And if you just put down a goose egg you are saying an absolute, which is a zero of when, zero of where, zero of what. And if that’s an absolute zero and continues to be handled as an absolute zero, alright. The formula will survive. But the very funny part of it is, is the moment that it ceases to be an absolute zero, and the moment when it becomes a zero of something, is not detected by the mathematician. And so when you divide zero by one and multiply it by two and so forth, the wildest and craziest things happen in mathematics that you could possibly envision. |
You could prove that one equals two, until you discover that you have divided something by zero. The behavior of zero is simply explained by that. | You could prove that one equals two, until you discover that you have divided something by zero. The behavior of zero is simply explained by that. |
To each of these fields, the knowledge of another added to it adds more to this field. In other words, we take what life does, we look over what life does and we can add to mathematics. But we took mathematics and we looked at life with mathematics, and we added more to life. And we took physics and we added physics over here to life, and we added more to life, and we added more to physics. And the first thing you know, we have come up with some very interesting simplicities. We have come up with the anatomy of what we are. That it is the anatomy of what we are is easily demonstrable. It isn’t any quick trick which is suddenly done. It actually isn’t a treatment, auditing. It’s merely an adventure on the road to discovery of greater beingness. If you know what beingness your fellow man is composed of you can understand him better, and if you know where you can go and what you can do with your own beingness, certainly you can live better. | To each of these fields, the knowledge of another added to it adds more to this field. In other words, we take what life does, we look over what life does and we can add to mathematics. But we took mathematics and we looked at life with mathematics, and we added more to life. And we took physics and we added physics over here to life, and we added more to life, and we added more to physics. And the first thing you know, we have come up with some very interesting simplicities. We have come up with the anatomy of what we are. That it is the anatomy of what we are is easily demonstrable. It isn’t any quick trick which is suddenly done. It actually isn’t a treatment, auditing. It’s merely an adventure on the road to discovery of greater beingness. If you know what beingness your fellow man is composed of you can understand him better, and if you know where you can go and what you can do with your own beingness, certainly you can live better. |
And so we have a very interesting thing has happened here, not because it’s happened here, not because that those of us who have worked upon this or done things with this, but simply because sooner or later it was inevitable that it should occur. The thinkingness about thinkingness in all the various lines with which man is connected would suddenly sooner or later group up together and simplify. Not all the power or not all the walls on Earth can hold knowingness from knowingness. Sooner or later these things would come together and illuminate one another. And when they did we would be able to do some remarkable things. | And so we have a very interesting thing has happened here, not because it’s happened here, not because that those of us who have worked upon this or done things with this, but simply because sooner or later it was inevitable that it should occur. The thinkingness about thinkingness in all the various lines with which man is connected would suddenly sooner or later group up together and simplify. Not all the power or not all the walls on Earth can hold knowingness from knowingness. Sooner or later these things would come together and illuminate one another. And when they did we would be able to do some remarkable things. |
Well those remarkable things we can do today. And those remarkable things we are doing today. But it’s the general field of human understanding and ability that has been enhanced. And that is the field actually in which we are working today. Scientology as an application of scientific methodology to the problems of humanity has paid off. There are thousands of people, there are tens of thousands of people living better lives today simply because they have worked with and participated in this adventure called Scientology. Thank you. Thank you. | Well those remarkable things we can do today. And those remarkable things we are doing today. But it’s the general field of human understanding and ability that has been enhanced. And that is the field actually in which we are working today. Scientology as an application of scientific methodology to the problems of humanity has paid off. There are thousands of people, there are tens of thousands of people living better lives today simply because they have worked with and participated in this adventure called Scientology. Thank you. Thank you. |