Okay. Now we have these various conditions of existence – four various conditions of existence.

The four conditions of existence are actually variations of existence itself. They are certain attitudes about existence, and they are the basic attitudes about existence. Now we could include a great many more attitudes, and we would find that we were deriving them all from these four. But we could take these four and find out that we were deriving them all from one – Is-ness, or reality.

These four conditions of existence which we are studying are actually variations of existence itself. They are certain attitudes about existence and they are the basic attitudes about existence.

There has to be an Is-ness before you can do an Alter-is-ness. There has to be an Isness before you can do a Not-is-ness – unless of course you want to postulate it in reverse.

Now, we could make many more attitudes and we would find that we were all deriving them from these four. But we could make these four and find out that we were all deriving them from one: isness, or reality.

But we are talking now about this particular universe and how it got here and we discover as we look along the track, that these four conditions of existence, that all existence, presupposes the postulate known as TIME.

There has to be an isness before you can do an alter-isness; there has to be an isness before you can do a not-isness. Isn't that right?

Now time is just a plain ordinary postulate which says that out of a non-consecutive beingness, which doesn't exist forever, we would get then a parade of time. A time continuum.

Okay. There has to be an isness before you can do a not-isness. Unless, of course, you want to postulate it in reverse. But we are talking, now, about this particular universe and how it got here.

There's no forever, it would just be there – no forever, no instant involved. There just isn't any consecutive existence at all. And then out of this we would have to make a postulate that there would now be consecutive existence, existences, or a consecutive series of states.

And we discover as we look along the track that these four conditions of existence presuppose the existence of a postulate known as time. In other words, all existence presupposes the postulate time.

Now an individual who is simply occupying space without any energy involved whatsoever doesn't have a good feeling about this. Without any space he could have a good feeling about it. No space, no energy, no continuum – he could have a fairly good feeling about this, but when he gets into the occupying of a space, now he has this feeling of foreverness unmocked. He makes that uncomfortable for himself, so he will now go on creating consecutive states of existence. He can have a game. Space is necessary to start this game but when you've just got space and nothing else, it's rather unbearable. You're already occupying, so there is an existence there, but it isn't an existence which has any consecutive difference of state. And that's real poor. This is a kind of feeling you run into in space-opera.

Now, time is just a plain, ordinary postulate which says out of a nonconsecutive beingness, which doesn't exist forever – there's no forever, see? It would just be there, see? No forever involved, no instant involved, it just hasn't any consecutive existence at all. And out of this we would have to make a postulate "there would now be a consecutive existence" – consecutive existences. Or there'd have to be a consecutive series of states. And out of this consecutive series of states, we would get, then, a parade of time; a time continuum.

Here we have, then, a state of existence being conditional upon a time postulate which would include a space-energy manifestation, and this would be a simultaneousness.

Now, an individual who is simply occupying space without any energy involved whatsoever has the same feeling, but a bad one – he doesn't have a good feeling about it. Without any space, he could have a good feeling about it – no space, no energy, no continuum; he could have a fairly good feeling about this. But when he gets into the matter of a space, now he has this feeling of forever-ness unmocked. He makes that uncomfortable for himself, so he will now go on creating consecutive states of existence and have a game. Space is necessary to start this game, but when you've just got space and you've got nothing else, it's rather unbearable. Do you see that? You're already occupying, so there is an existence there, but it isn't an existence which has any consecutive difference of state. And that's real poor. You get this feeling every once in a while in space opera, if you're ever fooling around with that.

There would be no question about whether you made the postulate for space and energy before you made the postulate of time. There is no question of any postulate before or after because you have not postulated the postulate which causes a before or after, and that postulate would be time. So actually, to have a game, there must be a simultaneous action whereby you postulate space-energy-time – space, energy, continuous existence. Which is an As-is-ness of space – altered, energy – altered, time – altered. So these items have to have the time postulate with Alter-is-ness in them in order to get a persistence. That's how it's done in this universe. You don't "just have to do this all the time". But when those three consecutive postulates are made simultaneously, why we then have a continuum of existence, demarked by differences of position of the particle in the space and we have time being marked out for us very neatly. We have to alter positions in order to get a continuousness. We have to say it is here, now it's here, now it's here, now it's here.

All right. Now, here we have, then, existence in one state being conditional upon a time postulate which would include a space-energy manifestation. We have to have space, we have to have energy, and now we don't necessarily have a consecutive existence, do you see? But this would be a simultaneousness. There would be no question about whether you made the postulate for space and energy before you made the postulate of time, or the postulate of time after you made the space-energy manifestation. Be no question of any postulate before or after, because you have not postulated the postulate which causes a before or after. And that postulate would be time.

There's another way of making time come true. We say space, no space, space, no space, space, no space, space, no space. You're postulating, however, that you can do this before you can say space, no space, space, no space. Well now, this postulate is so easy for a thetan to make, it might be considered a native part of his makeup. So we have before this an ideal state, that is to say an idealized or theoretical state. We have this theoretical state whereby we merely have a Static which has no space, no mass, no wave length, no motion, no time, which has the ability to consider, and we are dealing with the basic stuff of life. Just by definition.

So, actually, to have a game, it's a simultaneous action whereby you postulate space, energy, time – space, energy, continuous existence – which is an as-isness, space, altered; energy, as-isness altered; time, as-isness altered. Your three items there have to have the time postulate with alter-isness in them in order to get a persistence. That's how it's done in this universe. You don't just have to do this all the time, but when those three consecutive postulates are made simultaneously, why, we then have a continuum of existence demarked by differences of position of the particle in the space, and we have time being marked out for us very neatly.

It is very peculiar that: "We, mixed up in all of this energy and so forth and way on down the track from the time this postulate was made" – do you see anything specious about the way that remark hangs together – "Way on down the track from the time this postulate was made" – Very difficult and very strange that we could even discuss this higher state of existence which was made trillions of years ago? No. You see, it must have been concurrent with this, right here, and so we don't use the word existence, we use the word "is". We don't use the word "then" or "will be", we don't go back into the past or go into the future for this continuousness at all. It just is.

We have to alter position in order to get a continuousness. We have to say, "It is here.

Now, in past ages it was just: "Well, reality is reality and you'll have to accept it.

Now it's here. Now it's here. Now it's here."

There's nothing more you can know about it than that." Oh yes, there is a lot more you could know about reality than simply, it is.

Now, there's another way of making time come true. We say "Space-no space, spaceno space, space-no space, space-no space, space-no space." You're postulating, however, that you can do this before you can say" Space-no space, space-no space."

So, it is not a complete and embracive definition of reality. It's not complete and embracive because reality has a certain mechanical structure and that structure is composed of these four states of existence. And it would actually take all these four states of existence to make the kind of existence which we are now living and that is to say, we would have to have Is-ness then Not-is-ness and Alter-is-ness and did it strike you before that we might have forgotten and might never have known about and it might not have had called to our attention directly, this other state? We've always had these three states, Alter-is-ness, Not-is-ness and Is-ness.

Well now, this postulate is so easy for a thetan to make, it might be considered a native part of his mock-up. So here we have, however, before this, an ideal state – that is to say, an idealized or just a theoretical state – we have this theoretical state whereby we merely have a static which has no space, no mass, no wavelength, no motion, no time, which has the ability to consider. And we are dealing with the basic stuff of life, just by definition.

Alter-is-ness and Not-is-ness, of course, are variations of Is-ness and depend upon Isness. But there is a fourth one and that is As-is-ness. And that condition natively exists at an instant of creation, yet it also can be made to exist again any time anybody wants to make it exist again, simply by saying AS IS. If anybody had truly and actually accepted reality and had got all of his fellow beings to simply accept reality, we wouldn't have any. But whose reality? Whose reality in each case? Somebody else's. So this reality was actually another condition, other-determined As-is-ness. Other determined. Which is Not-is-ness!

Now, it is very peculiar that we, mixed up in all of this energy, and so forth, and way on down the track from the time this postulate was made – you see anything specious in the way my remarks are hanging together? – very difficult and very strange that we could even discuss this higher state of existence which was made trillions of years ago. No. You see, it must have been concurrent with this, right here. And so we never say – we don't use the word existence, we use the word is. We don't use the word then or will be. See, we don't go back into the past or go into the future for this continuousness at all; it's just is.

The way you get Not-is-ness is to say "as is created by you". That's an awful one, that's a big curve, and that is Not-is-ness. It's an As-is-ness created by somebody else, which of course isn't an As-is-ness at all. It's a very specious As-is-ness, and naturally the world would sort of look unreal to everybody if Joe Blow and Doctor Stinkwater and the Heavily Laden Order of Pyramids all said "This is reality and this is As It Is and you'd better accept it." That's a Not-is-ness, isn't it? So if everything starts to sort of dim down on you and you kind of find things going out, and getting sort of resistively thin – all transparent-but – they're-there, or, they're "all hung with black sheets" – you must assume at that time that you have faced up to too many As-is-nesses which somebody else created.

Now, in past ages it was only necessary to say," Well, reality is reality and you'll just have to accept it, you know. It's just reality. Nothing more you could know about it than that."

Somebody else says, "This is the way things are." And you've had that. You get that operation in conversation: "And yesterday you said to me, just when I got up, you said to me, you never work, you are a dirty loafer, you remember that, don't you?" I think every familial unit of thetans should always have, not a Bible, but so and so's Rules of Evidence, lying right there to be resorted to at any time, and there ought to be a Court in every neighborhood to which you could repair and decide whether or not this was an As-is-ness or a Not-is-ness.

Oh, yes! There's a lot more you could know about reality than simply it is.

Now what is a Not-is-ness? A Not-is-ness comes about in that exact manifestation, or simply by the separate postulate: "Well, it is and I regret it. It isn't." You know, you could have made it and then said it wasn't. Oddly enough, if you made it and you know you made it, you have a special case of being in a position to say any time, "It doesn't exist now," and it won't – if you have also accepted responsibility for having created something and said, "I made it." So we see that there are two different conditions of Not-is-ness.

So, is, is not a complete and embracive definition of reality. It's not complete and embracive. Because reality has a certain mechanical structure, and that structure is composed of these four states of existence. And it'd actually take all these four states of existence to make the kind of an existence which we are now living, and that is to say, we would have to have isness, then not-isness and alter-isness. And did it strike you before that we might have forgotten and might never have known about, and it might not have been called to our attention directly, this other state? We've always had these three states: alter-isness, not-isness and, of course, isness.

One is just vanishment.

Alter-isness and not-isness, of course, are variations of isness and depend upon isness. But there was a fourth one, and that's as-isness, and that is a perfect duplicate. As-isness. And that condition natively exists at an instant of creation. It exists at this instant of creation. And it also can be made to exist again anytime anybody wants to make it exist again simply by saying, "As is."

The other one is an Is-ness which somebody is trying to postulate out of existence by simply saying "It isn't."

If anybody had truly and actually sat down and accepted reality and had got all of his fellow beings to simply accept reality, we wouldn't have any. That's all.

A Not-is-ness, in our terminology, would be this second specialized case of an individual trying to vanish something without taking responsibility for having created it. Definitive, positive and precise definition.

So I think it must have been a half-hearted thing or acceptance of reality in the past must have been defined as "Let's see, now. I think everybody should be unhappy, miserable, oooh, three-quarters dead, enslaved under very thorough control. Now, that is reality and I want you to accept it."

And the only result of doing this is to make it all unreal. To make it forgotten. To make it "back of the black screen". To make it transparent. To make it dull down. To give it over to a machine. To wear glasses. Anything that you could possibly do to get a dimmingdown of an Is-ness.

That's what the psychiatrist does, you know? "You'll just have to accept the fact that you're a homosexual."

And that is done by saying just this, just this precise operation and no other operation: "I didn't make it. It isn't." "I didn't do it, so it doesn't exist.', And that will always bring about this second condition, the one we give the term of Not-is-ness.

The fellow has made it plain many times that he wasn't a homosexual, he's a heterosexual.

"I didn't create it. I had nothing to do with it. I have no responsibility for this at all, so it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned." An individual doesn't have to operate on these postulates at all, but he is running on this makeup of postulates. He, of course, then will trigger in all the rest of his postulates and they'll cross-reference in to sticking him right there with it. He's Not-ised it and he's got it.

"Well, you're really a… You're really a… a paleontological uh… aphrodisiac. That is exactly uh… the psychiatric classification that we got out of a Latin book and you'll just have to accept this reality or we won't have any more to do with you as a patient. We'll kick you the hell out of here." You know. Good, solid treatment. I'm afraid this was the way reality was being classified all along the track.

Now he thinks the only way he can get rid of it is to dim it down, dim it down.

"I'm going to dream something up and I'm going to hold a gun on you." "And the trouble with you is you won't face reality." But whose reality? Whose reality in each case? Somebody else's! So this reality was actually another condition: other-determined as-isness, hm? Other-determined, which is not-isness.

You can process a preclear on a gradient scale of change on something – and this is of great interest to us – if the gradient scale is back toward his acceptance of responsibility for having created it. It would not be far enough to go, in Dianetics, simply to find out that your mother did it, that "it was what your mother said". That wouldn't be far enough to go.

The way you get not-isness is to say, "As is created by you." Aw, that's an awful one! That's a big curve. And that is not-isness. It's an as-isness created by somebody else, which of course isn't an as-isness at all. It's a very specious as-isness. And, naturally, the world would sort of look unreal to everybody if Joe Blow and Doctor Stinkwater and the Heavily Laden Order of Pyramids all said, "This is reality and this is as it is, and you'd better accept it." We've got a not-isness. Isn't it?

This is built into the woof and warp of the track, the very composite of postulates on which an individual is running.

So if everything starts to sort of dim down on you and you kind of find things going out, you know, and getting sort of resistively thin… Do you know what I mean? Resistively thin; they're all sort of transparent, but they're there? Or they're all hung with black sheets. You must assume at that time that you have faced up to too many as-isnesses which somebody else created.

You would have to go back this far: you would have to postulate: (1) that the time Mother said it was NOW, and, (2) that the time when Mother said it caused the time when I said it (a million or fifteen billion years ago) to key in. (key in (Verb): An earlier moment of upset or painful experience is activated, restimulated, by the similarity of a later situation, action or environment to the earlier one.) Every time somebody else can put one of your own pieces of mental machinery or one of your engrams into restimulation, it is only because he can work on something which was natively created by yourself. All things carry the germ of their own destruction, and you postulate the germ of your own destruction.

In other words, somebody else says, "This is the way things are and you said it." You get that operation in conversation. "And yesterday you said to me – just when I got up, you said to me, 'You never work, you are a dirty loafer.' You remember that, don't you?" I think every familial unit of thetans when they get all together, and so on, should always have, not a bible, but so-and-so's "Rules of Evidence" lying right there to be resorted to at any time. And there ought to be a court in every neighborhood to which you could repair and decide whether or not this was an as-isness or a not-isness.

So any engram, as we were operating with it in Dianetics, was actually a key-in. When I discovered that the whole track ran back, back, back, back, BACK, it was, "Oh! We're back to where the guy did it in the first place!" Well, that was very interesting, and one result was the essay on responsibility in Advanced Procedure and Axioms.[#bookmark10 1] The essay on full responsibility.

Now, what is a not-isness? A not-isness comes about from that exact manifestation, or simply by the separate postulate "Well, it is and I regret it – it isn't." You know, you could have made it and then said it wasn't.

Well, a fellow did. He created the condition from which he is now suffering, and he didn't even create it in other wise than he is now suffering it. But it has been keyed in and he has consented even to its being keyed in.

Now, the funny part of it is that if you made it and you know you made it, you can always say," It doesn't exist now." By saying what? By saying "I made it." It as-isness'd, see? You accept the responsibility for having created it and you get a not-isness.

Nothing, really is sneaking up on anybody. That's a horrible thing, isn't it? People haven't even made it worse. But we're having a good game. If that game is a game called psychosomatic illness, bereft lover, neglected baby, it's still a game. And as such, the individual is still playing all roles.

So there are really two conditions of not-isness: there's just vanishment or the other one, which is what we mean, which is an isness which somebody is trying to postulate out of existence by simply saying "It isn't."

Now what happens is that as an individual goes along the line, he starts identifying himself with the source point and receipt point of the communication line. As a child, he identifies himself as the one who is talked to. Very seldom do you discover a little child giving mother a good lecture. If you had, you probably would remember with great satisfaction, the good lecture you gave your mother.

A not-isness in our terminology would be this specialized case of an individual trying to banish something without taking responsibility for creating it. Definite, positive and precise definition: trying to vanish something without taking the responsibility for creating it.

Here is a condition in which the individual has identified himself with a continuous effect point, or a continuous cause point, and having said "I am now on this point," he now makes his considerations below the level of that point. He has considered he is on that point.

And the only result of doing this is to make it all unreal, to make it forgotten, to make it back of the black screen, to make it transparent, to make it dull down, to give it over to a machine, to wear glasses – anything that you could possibly do to get a dim-down of an isness. And that is done by saying – just this, just this precise operation; no other operation: "I didn't make it. It isn't." See? "I didn't do it, so it doesn't exist."

Henceforth all further considerations are monitored by this consideration that he's on the point, as long as he considers he's on that point. And he would have to recognize that he was on the point (an As-is-ness) before he would come off the point.

And that will always bring about this other condition of not-isness.

A process immediately occurs to us on such a level. If you just simply ask an individual a question such as this over and over and over and over: "Where could you be, where you would be willing to recognize and realize that you were?" And you would just run a gradient

See? "I didn't create it, I have nothing to do with it, I have no responsibility for this at all, so it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned." "Nhrrn-nrrn-nrrn-nrrn."

1 Advanced Procedure and Axioms: Book by L. Ron Hubbard scale all the way back up the line, to the point where the individual recognizes, finally, "You know, I'm sitting right here!" There wouldn't be any mysticism involved in this.

Now, built into the woof and warp of the track, the very composite on which an individual is running – he doesn't have to run on these postulates at all, you see, but he is running on this makeup of postulates… He of course, then, will trigger into all the rest of his postulates and they'll cross-reference into sticking him right there with it. He's got it.

Now, these conditions of existence are composited up in an inter-dependency one upon another. An Is-ness exists only because of As-is-ness. As-is-ness took place in the first place.

Now, the only way he can get rid of it now is just to dim it down, dim it down.

It got created. Then we had to alter it slightly to get an Is-ness. We had to give up some responsibility for it and we had to shift it around. A Not-is-ness then exists in order to provide a game.

Now, the funny part of it is that an individual can run a gradient scale of change on something if the gradient scale is back toward his acceptance of responsibility for having created it.

A game is an Is-ness which is being handled by Not-is-nesses. A football game could be added up in terms of these conditions of existence. One side has the ball and the other side must Not-is the side that has the ball, and the side that has the ball has to win – in other words, has to arrive at a receipt point.

It would not be far enough to go, in Dianetics, simply to find out that your mother did it. That was what your mother said. That wouldn't be far enough to go. You'd have to go back this far: Mother said it – you know, you'd have to postulate that the time was now – Mother said it, and that keyed in the fact that here on the track, whether a million, two billion, eight billion, sixteen trillion years ago, "I said it."

We get the communication formula itself as being below the conditions of existence and we get affinity, reality and communication as simply being the methods by which existence is conducted. It is not the interplay of existences. So we're dealing with a higher echelon than ARC right now.

Every time somebody else can put one of your machines or one of your engrams into restimulation, it is only because he can work on something which was natively created by yourself. All things carry the germ of their own destruction. And you have postulated the germ of your own destruction. And then later on people come along and because you're in communication with them, and so forth, they can give you a key-in.

Affinity really is merely the consideration of how well it's going. In the agreement or reality itself we're talking about Is-ness and that is the corner where we enter this ARC triangle. We just slide into that triangle of Affinity-Reality-Communication on that Is-ness point of reality, and then it is modified by affinity and communication, which of course come in simultaneously with it. We discover then that these conditions of existence would add up to all manifestations of behavior. There would be a great many of them. There would be a finite number, however. It would be the number of possible combinations, singly, doubly, trebly or quadruply, of these four conditions of existence. We get this individual who in only 75% of his life is trying to say Not-is to, another 10% of his life he's giving an Alter-is, one hundredth of one per cent he's giving an As-is, or trying to give an As-is to – and the remainder is Reality. Acceptable reality. And that would be just one makeup of a personality.

So any engram, as we were operating with it in Dianetics, was a key-in. When I discovered that the whole track ran back-back-back-back-back – back. "No! No! No!" Backback-back. "No! My golly!" Back-back. "Where the heck are we now? Oh? Oh!"

If we say that there is a gradient scale of Is-ness, a gradient scale of Alter-is-ness, a gradient scale of As-is-ness (which there isn't) and a gradient scale of Not-is-ness, why we can see then that you could take these gradient scales and in one combination and another, have a character composited from them.

We're back to where the guy did it in the first place. Well, that's very interesting. And the result of that was the essay on responsibility in Advanced Procedure and Axioms – the essay on full responsibility.

Characterization must be made up, in great degree, from these conditions of existence. Some space, some energy, and his considerations of Is-ness, Not-is-ness and Alter-is-ness.

Well, a fellow did. He created the condition from which he is now suffering. And he didn't even create it in other wise than he is now suffering it. But it has been keyed in and he has consented even to it being keyed in.

We would not say that any part of his characterization was made up of As-is-ness, because if it was it wouldn't be there.

Nothing really is sneaking up on anybody. That's a horrible thing, isn't it? People haven't even made it worse. But we're having a good game. If that game is a game called psychosomatic illness, bereft lover, neglected baby, it's still a game. And as such, the individual is still playing all roles.

One also has been trained to believe that loss is bad. This is just a reverse postulate, made just to keep life interesting. Loss is bad, therefore he has a tendency to avoid As-is-ness.

Now, what happens is that as an individual goes along the line, he starts identifying himself with the source point and receipt point of the communication line. As a little child, he's the one who identifies himself as the one who is talked to. Very seldom do you ever discover a little child giving Mother a good lecture. You seldom discover this. But if you do remember it, you probably remember it with great satisfaction of the good lecture you gave your mother.

Therefore he will avoid duplication – he'll avoid all kinds of things. He's afraid he'll unmock.

Here is a condition: the individual has identified himself with a continuous-effect point or a continuous-cause point. And having said "I am now on this point," he now makes his considerations below the level of that point. See, he's considered he's on the point. Now all further considerations are monitored by this consideration that he's on the point, as long as he's on the point. Now, he'd have to recognize that he was on the point (an as-isness) before he'd come off the point. You see that?

He's afraid he'll vanish. Here he is stuck in, eighteen feet thick, and you couldn't get him out with a pneumatic drill, all scheduled to go back to the between-lives area (Betweenlives area: The experiences of a thetan during the period of time between the loss of a body and the assumption of another. See A HISTORY OF MAN by L. Ron Hubbard) and pick up another baby.

A process immediately occurs on such a level. If you just simply ask an individual, Straightwire, this question over and over and over and over and over: "Where could you be where you would be willing to recognize and realize that you were?" "Where could you be that you would be willing to recognize that you were?" And you just run the gradient scale all the way back up the line to the point where the individual recognizes, finally, "You know, I'm sitting right here!" There wouldn't be any mysticism involved in this.

Silly, isn't it? But it doesn't matter too much. Any life or continuance, to him, has begun to be better than no life at all.

All right. Now, these conditions of existence could be composited up. They are interdependent, one upon another, you see?

You could say, well then why would you process somebody? Well, let's look at that. In order to accomplish a two way communication, just after the basic and most rudimentary chitterchat, I would start asking somebody why he was being processed. And you know, I'm just wicked enough to go on asking the person why he is being processed for hours. Until he can at least find one reason why he is being processed. It's a very interesting process. A preclear comes in saying, "Process me," and you have always supposed they knew. Well, at this point they don't have any idea at all why they want to be processed.

An isness exists only because of as-isness – as-isness took place in the first place; it got created, then we had to alter it slightly to get an isness; we had to give up some responsibility for it and we had to shift it around. A not-isness, then, exists in order to provide a game.

A process which would be quite powerful would be: "What wrongness or what wrong thing would you find other people would accept from you?" or "What could you do that was wrong that other people would accept?" and then "What wrongness could you accept from other people?" – back and forth and back and forth. Here goes the guy's manners, his social pattern, his behavior pattern, and everything else will just go by the boards running that process but he won't be able to tell you, first and foremost, why he's being processed.

A game is an isness which is being handled by a couple of not-isnesses, or an isness being handled by a not-isness, any way you want to look at it.

He won't be able to tell you he wants to feel freer. He won't articulate any of these things. He'll just sit there and want to be processed. What toward? Until you've gotten him to put a little time on the track, he will use "forever" in processing, because he's sitting in forever.

A football game can be added up in terms of existence, see? Here we have one side and it's got the ball, and so the other side must not-is the side that's got the ball. The side that's got the ball has to win – in other words, to arrive at a receipt point someplace along the line.

He isn't moving on the time continuum. Well, if you can't get him processing toward some goal or other or in some direction, he just makes processing the end all of everything and he'll just go on being processed forever. But if he's going to be processed forever, he'll have to hold onto his aberrations forever, otherwise he couldn't be processed forever, could he? And that's why some cases stay so long in processing. It's actually as elementary as that.

We get the communication formula itself as being lower than the conditions of existence. And we get affinity, reality and communication as simply being the methods by which existence is conducted. It is not the interplay of existences – so we're dealing with a higher echelon than ARC right now.

So I have been sorely tempted to alter that early auditing step to just this: "Well now, give me some goals you have in processing." And just keep it up until it's no longer forever, and the preclear has a future.

All right. Affinity really is merely the consideration of how well it's going. Agreement or reality itself, we're talking about isness. And there is where we enter the corner of the triangle. And we just slide into that triangle on that isness point and then it is modified by A and

C. They, of course, come in simultaneously with it.

But those are just a way we play the game, such as some people use drop kicks and some people use punts. This doesn't matter much. We could also add other ways to play this game, but that happens to be the way the game is being played.

All right. And we discover, then, that all of these conditions of existence then would add up to all kinds of manifestations of behavior. They would add up to all kinds of manifestations of behavior. Oh, there'd just be lots of them. There'd be a finite number, however; it would be the number of possible combinations, singly, doubly, trebly or quadruply of these four conditions of existence.

And if you want a little exercise sometime in geometry, you ought to do that. How many combinations can we get out of any set of four? Well, we can basically get any one of the four, can't we? But we found these four were somewhat interrelated, so it'd be hard to get just one of the four. But we could recognize one of the four as being its own state. We could isolate it. So there could be any one of these four.

Now, there could be any two of these four in combination with the other two, and then any three of these four in combination with the other three, and any four of these four all acting and all in combination, and then all of these things in various degrees of action.

We get this individual: only seventy-five percent of his life he's trying to say not-is to; another ten percent of his life he's giving an alter-is; one one-hundredth of one percent he's giving an as-is, or trying to give an as-is to, and the remainder is reality, acceptable reality. And that would be just one makeup of a personality.

If we said that there was a gradient scale of isness, a gradient scale of alter-isness, a gradient scale of as-isness (which there isn't), a gradient scale of not-isness, why, we would see, then, that you could take these gradient scales and at one grade or another have a character composited from them. You see? And then we would have a characterization.

What is the basic character of anybody? The basic character of anybody must be made up in some degree horn – must be made up from (in conditions of existence) – some space, some energy and his considerations of isness, not-isness and alter-isness. It's not necessarily true that any part of his considerations are made up of as-isness. Because if they were, they wouldn't be there. In other words, he also has been trained to believe that loss is bad. This is just a reverse postulate, just to keep life interesting. Loss is bad. So therefore, he has a tendency to avoid as-isness. So therefore, he'll avoid duplication, he'll avoid all kinds of things. He's afraid he'll unmock. There he is, stuck in eighteen feet thick, you couldn't get him out with a pneumatic drill, all scheduled to go back to the between-lives area and pick up another baby, and he's afraid he'll unmock. Silly, isn't it?

But it doesn't matter too much. Any life or continuance to him has begun to be better than no life at all.

You say, "Well, then why are you processing somebody?"

Well, let me tell you something about that. ARC Straightwire is listed in the first issue of The Auditor's Handbook as the third step of Intensive Procedure. In order to accomplish all three goals of getting into a two-way communication and so forth, just after the basic and most rudimentary chitterchat, I would start asking somebody why he was being processed. And you know, I'm just wicked enough to start asking a person why he's being processed for hours until he can at least find one reason why he's being processed. I would merely substitute, then, "Why are you being processed?" – or "Toward what goal are you being processed?" would be a much politer way to say it and maybe a better communication – "Toward what goal are you being processed?" as step three instead of ARC Straightwire. It's a very interesting process!

Most preclears come in, they say, "Process me." "Why?"

You would say immediately, and you have always supposed that they must have a good idea why they want to be processed. They don't have. They don't have any idea at all why they want to be processed. Because they want to be an exterior thetan? No, they might not even know about this. They just know there's something wrong with them.

The most horrible technique you could run on anybody in terms of producing results, tearing off their heads and everything else, would be "What wrong-ness or what wrong thing would you find other people would accept from you?" "What could you do that was wrong that other people would accept?" See? "Now, what wrongness could you accept from other people?" Back and forth and back and forth. Here goes the guy's manners. His social pattern, his behavior pattern and everything else will just go by the boards running that process.

But he won't be able to tell you, first and foremost, why he's being processed. He won't be able to tell that he wants to feel freer and so forth. He won't articulate any of these things. He'll just sit there and want to be processed.

Well, what toward? Until you've gotten him to put a little time on the track, he will use forever in processing because he's sitting in forever. He isn't moving on the time continuum. He's off the time continuum. Well, if you can't get him processing toward some goal or other, or in some direction, he just makes processing, of course, the end-all of everything, and he'll just go on being processed forever. But of course if he's going to be processed forever, he'll have to hold on to his aberrations forever, otherwise he couldn't be processed forever, could he? It's actually as elementary as that why cases stay a long time in processing.

So I've been sorely tempted to alter that step three to just this: "Well now, give me some goals you have in processing." And just keep it up.

Okay?