The basic dynamic principle of existence is: SURVIVE! Underlying this dynamic and essential to it is MOTION, for survival is accomplished by a continuance of motion at a given optimum rate. To be at its best, an organism must sustain an optimum motion. When motion is either too fast or too slow, an organism becomes static, which is tantamount to death. There is a tone scale of motion, from static on the too-slow side to static on the too-rapid side with optimum motion between.
| 4.0 | motion too slow |
| 2.0 | optimum motion |
| 0.0 | motion too fast |
Motion has, as a component part, effort or energy applied in a given direction. The compelling or inhibiting of effort compels or inhibits respectively the organism’s optimum rate of motion. To rehabilitate the individual, then, one must process out of existence any over- or under-motion or times when application of effort caused enturbulation.
The individual organism is engaged in a contest between itself, other organisms, and MEST. An organism seeks to maintain a motion pro-survival to itself and its symbiotes. To maintain this motion it must overcome the environment effort inhibiting or compelling its effort, termed counter-effort.
An example of this principle might be considered to be the act of driving an automobile. A driver, with an intentional line of direction, is suddenly caused to stop his forward motion because of a stop light. Although this does not usually bother him to any great extent, it does cause a slight lock since it is inhibited motion. To add to the confusion, a car speeding up from the rear bumps the stopped car, compelling a motion which was unintentional. At this point there is a slight randomity
The magnitude of the survival threat modulates the amount of effort demanded by a rational mind. Aberration is a failure to add algebraically the amount of effort necessary to the optimum solution of the problem. Such a failure can be caused either by a lack of data available to the individual involved or by his having met problems unsuccessfully in the past. In either case the individual unwittingly determined nonsurvival courses as to that effort by his own self-determinism at the time he accepted the counter-effort. Thus even the mechanism of restimulation is the individual’s own self-determinism lifting the engram into present time.
In any engram the point of lowest awareness of effort is the deepest point of anaten. Here is the effort unsuccessfully applied in all directions so that there is no resolution of effort. Anyone who suffers from such randomity to any great extent comes to the point where he is no longer able to add up magnitude of efforts. He cannot be a rational being. Rationality is ability to recognize and meet the magnitude of effort (counter-effort) being applied to the individual.
The mind can be considered to be, basically, an aligned quantity which is pliable and amenable. It is directional, aligning the efforts of the organism or things of which the organism is a part. Gradually its original aligned vectors toward survival become turned around and are pointed toward succumb. This is illustrated in the following tone scale.
-4.0
-3.0
-2.0
-1.0
-0.0
Physiologically the individual mind is capable of being impinged upon by inhibitive or compulsive efforts of others. In view of this we have postulated randomity. A race, a group or even a family without an agreed goal has randomity. Efforts to survive are being applied in many directions and some of them impinge on individual minds to deprive those individuals, if they allow it, of a portion of their self- determinism.
Every time a person’s effort is compelled or impeded, he receives some degree of anaten. His energy is flowing in a certain direction; counter-effort throws the energy flow back upon itself. Because the central control unit has not received contrary directions, it continues the line of the original flow against the reversed vectors. Naturally the end result of the effort is blunted, confused. Continuing this flow of random vectors will carry enturbulation to the point of unconsciousness. Anyone applying enough effort toward survival can cause unconsciousness; he is trying to overcome more than he has ability to overcome. This may be exemplified by a person trying to lift a car until he becomes unconscious. He underestimates the magnitude of effort necessary for performance of the task. An unsolved problem is an effort which has not been overcome and thereby causes randomity of effort encysted in time. Anaten is the physiological manifestation of this randomity of effort.
What is this process of giving up self-determinism? Observe an individual who is gradually succumbing to counter-effort control and you will see it is a matter of his central control unit being transplanted. Consider this person’s “I” when it is in complete control and with full self-determinism as a motorman. The motorman has to be constantly alert as to where he is, what he is doing, what he has to oppose and what he has to overcome in order to keep aligned vector energy. Then watch this motorman participate in a boxing stance. Standing upright with arms extended, the body is hit. “I” goes unconscious as randomity overpowers, and “I” releases the control buttons. The last moment “I” was in control, the body was in an upright position; the next moment when “I” endeavors to regain control, all the levers have been changed. The body is flat on its back. It has been moved in time and space. “I” now tries to hook up with the motor control buttons again when none of them are the same. He grabs here and there, finally clutching onto some old control post that monitored the organism at another time in a point of consciousness. A counter-effort now controls the organism to some extent; a valence presides. This can be only of a harmful nature to the organism since harm was the sole purpose of that command post when it was previously in control.
New centers are constantly being formed for commanding an organism, but the same is not true of recording centers. Perceptics are always recorded at the central point. Hence it follows that as “I” is constantly forced to move farther and farther from the center, the individual loses his perceptics. In some situations, however, “I” is overcome to the extent that the “valence I” reaches completely over the entire surface of the mind until its central point coincides with “I” at its central point. This produces the wide-open case with all perceptics available. This assumed “I” looks valid; it is right there, all fingers on the buttons, yet not monitoring. It has no ability to reason or to handle the organism.
Dianetic processing endeavors to strip the organism of its inhibitive or compulsive factors with emphasis on the self-determined efforts of the preclear. Moments when the preclear decided for himself upon non-survival courses are recovered and reevaluated, and “I” is gradually brought closer to its rightful position at the central command post.
In self-determined effort processing, the auditor’s first step in the usual case is to assist the preclear to discover his effort along a survival course such as eating or going somewhere. He may attempt to recover for the preclear the actual physical conscious effort toward some MEST object, such as the act of lifting something in present time. When the preclear has re-experienced the sensation of his own physical effort, the auditor can then ask for the mental effort which ordered the action. By working carefully and patiently, he can at length encourage the preclear into actually re- experiencing the thought impulse and the motor control impulses on the sides of the head. Here is the central switchboard area which essentially is jammed up by counter- effort. The effort of the preclear to act against these counter-efforts may turn on tingling or painful sensations in the temples and sides of the preclear’s head and down the spine.
The auditor can ask for and the preclear will usually experience the sensations of mental effort to engage on non-survival courses. (It is interesting to note that the engaging upon survival courses does not basically entail effort. The engaging upon nonsurvival courses, however, does, since obviously it was physical force which thrust the preclear onto these non-survival courses.) One asks then not for the times when the preclear underwent stress and agonies concerning survival courses. One wants, instead, the stress and agony of having to assume non-survival courses, and the decisions to make those efforts.
The purpose of effort processing is to remove beliefs, statics, too much or too little motion. Consequently the auditor wants to help the preclear to find his efforts to halt energy and matter, to start and stop motion, to resist, accept, change the physical universe. Together they want to find times when the preclear has held on to data (causing randomity) and run effort out of those beliefs and decisions. The auditor can ask for such basic efforts as the effort to engage in non-survival activity, the effort to do wrong, the effort to refuse to eat, his effort not to have affinity for himself, his effort not to communicate with himself. They can run out physical efforts to obey and should scan effort of all enforcements or inhibitions of ARC. Questions can range along any of the dynamics, but it is best to clean up the first dynamic first. Intersperse effort processing with some validation-MEST processing.
General questions on effort may throw the preclear into an engram along the chain being straight-wired for effort. It is probably wise also to return to engrams previously contacted and re-run them with effort processing. Once the self-determined effort is gone from an engram, the rest of the force is nothing and evidently the engram no longer has power to restimulate.
Engrams are run with Standard Procedure but with emphasis on effort instead of perceptics.
In any engram there is counter-effort and there is the preclear’s effort against the counter-effort. The exertion of force against the individual organism is not the same as the organism’s force exerted against the environment. Should the preclear concentrate on the effort that opposed him, the counter-effort, he goes out of valence. To avoid this, the auditor uses such leading questions as “What is your effort in regard to the opposition?” “What is your effort to resist the counter-effort?” In this manner the external effort source can be invalidated and the “I’s” opposition validated and experienced. For example, let us look at the basic area. There it is easy to get the womb’s effort — that is, the pressure of the womb on the individual. Strive instead for the preclear’s opposition to or expansion against that pressure of the womb, or his acceptance of it. With the sperm, do not go after the obstruction of progress but for the sperm’s effort against that progress; and reduce efforts to the point where he is an unopposed sperm.
Self-determined effort processing is essentially for cases which can be gotten into communication with the auditor. In low-tone cases simple ARC validation-MEST processing is used in order to orient the individual in present time.
Effort processing, then, lifts up for emphasis the fact that only one’s self determinism is important, and that the efforts and the counter-efforts against it are the aberrating factors. Rediscovering times for the preclear when he gave up his self determinism, and erasing the efforts involved in these postulates and incidents is giving back that individual’s happiness and assisting him to move again in a survival direction.