I want to talk to you now concerning the steps in Route 1, continuing with these steps on Route 1-8.

Okay. Here we have now, Route 1, Step 11. R1-11: "Have preclear be problems and solutions in havingness." And this would, of course, be sequitur in having disabused him of his most favorite idea that two things cannot occupy the same space. Having disabused him of this obvious, known, practical and convincing idea, we would be able to go on to R1-11. Or, having failed utterly to disabuse him of it — you know, having failed utterly in R1-10 — we would go on to R1-11.

Here we have, in exteriorization, the main difficulty on the part of an individual in perception. He believes that it is dangerous to look; this is his main reason for not seeing. He believes that it is dangerous to hear, which is his main reason for not hearing.

Now, you see, you could fail in R1-10 — you could fail — by not running it long enough, by having a preclear who is having a lot of difficulty while exteriorized, by having had this preclear be sloppily audited before. You know, there'd be various reasons. And you've asked him this question: "What things wouldn't you mind occupying your same space?" And, boy, he's vague, and he's this way and that. And after you run it for a little while, he gets unhappy, and then you get it kind of flat. But you're not satisfied with it at all, you could actually just go on to R1-11 — if you weren't getting anyplace with it. Now, that's not to encourage you to change a process just because it isn't getting a result. But I'm just telling you that R1-11 is independent of R1-10.

Actually, there is a slightly better reason than these two main reasons. The main reason is he's a problem to himself if he can't see, and he's a problem to himself if he can't hear, can't smell, and so forth. We learned that under two-way communication, didn't we?

Why is it? Well, we're in a basic process again, you see? And do you know that all those basic processes — conceding the fact that the Remedy of Havingness and Spotting Spots are actually very much associated with each other — all those basic processes are workable processes. And here we've simply moved on to two-way communication. And we'll see, back here at the be-ginning, we asked him if he had any present time problems — you know, we got into communication by talking about problems? — well, here, tucked way down here at R1-11, we have a basic process. This is a basic process.

Well, he turns off his perception and this makes a very, very nice problem. And under Route 1-8, however, we discover most thetans have gotten into a condition where they believe that it is now so dangerous that it has ceased to be any kind of a problem. It's just simply very, very dangerous to perceive anything.

You could have started a process of this character the first time you ever talked to him. You could have started this process if you just had been introduced to him. So it's got to be in R1 someplace, so it's just there. It's not dependent on the one above it or below it. Problems and Solutions in Havingness.

And so this is simply a process which, when the individual is exteriorized, gets him to change his consideration.

Now, you'll also discover this over here in a later process, won't you? You will discover that this could have followed Opening Procedure by Duplication, hm? And you'll find it again appearing as R2-20, Use of Problems and Solutions — another way to run it. But it's still a very basic process, two-way communication. It's a problem that you're in communication with him at all.

You must realize that on somebody exteriorized all you have to do is ask him to change his consideration and he is then capable. He can change his consideration that he is capable; he can change his consideration that he isn't capable.

So this fellow is exteriorized and we use this form when we have some-body out of his body. You know, he's exteriorized. He's an awareness of awareness unit. He's aware of his differentiation. He is somewhere up close to Clear. He's still associated with energy masses or something of the sort. Well, a thetan is unhappy unless he can have a few problems, and so on.

Actually, aside from coaxing him to deal with energy masses and perceptions, the only process there is to a Clear is ask him to change his mind. That's all the process there is: he changes a consideration. We drag him out of the field of mechanics, in other words, and as soon as we've got him out of the field of mechanics, why, he processes simply by getting him to change his mind.

And you could ask him, "What kind of a problem can you be in havingness?" — specialized use, see. "What kind of problem could you be in havingness?" It's rather significant, but he'll give you some problems he could be in havingness. "Let me see, I could be a pauper, and I could be this and that." And all of a sudden it will occur to him, sooner or later, as you're asking him that question over and over again, "I could be exteriorized." That's one of the reasons he's not stabilizing outside: he's being a problem in havingness. You know, there's the body, and there he is. He should be in the body; if he's in the body, he has it.

If a thetan exteriorized cannot change his mind, he is still very, very enmeshed in the whole theory of mechanics. And being enmeshed and immersed in mechanics, he feels that these mechanics are going to smite him one way or the other. The biggest deterrent to somebody getting into this state is fear of the environment, and the energy masses and spaces contained in it. That is the biggest deterrent to his changing his mind.

Actually, he's having to hide, protect and own bodies in order to be happy in life. Well, that's a problem of havingness. Hiding bodies, hiding objects, hiding gold, burying treasure — that's a problem in havingness, see. Hiding, protecting, owning — these are problems in havingness. So you'd just go on asking him this: "What kind of a problem can you be in havingness?" Well, we've sometimes used this along this line: "What kind of a problem can you be in havingness?" and then "What kind of a problem can you be in not-havingness?" just to shake it up — you know, to give him the idea. He gets havingness as a positive and not-havingness as a negative affair. And this is just to make sure that you're covering all squares.

As an individual gets smaller and smaller and goes on down the dwindling spiral, he believes that exterior forces are more and more dangerous to him. Now, the saw which is inserted at this point is really more of a saw than an axiom: A man is as sane as he believes himself to be dangerous to his environment. See, that's a very low-level look, isn't it? But he is as sane as he believes himself dangerous to his environment. That's very true of man.

So you'd ask him this question. He's exteriorized, and you say, "What kind of a problem can you be in havingness? What's another kind of a problem could you be in havingness?" And you'd run that until its comm lag was pretty flat. And then you would say, "What kind of a problem can you be in not-havingness?" and then "Give me some more problems you could be in not-havingness. Some more problems you could be in not-havingness." And then we could run it a little longer, till that communication lag was flat on that, and then we could ask him, while exteriorized, "What kind of a problem can others be to you in havingness?" And again, "What kind of a problem could others be to you in havingness?" And then we'd say "What kind of a problem can others be to you in not-havingness?" And right away he gets the feeling of the walls pulling the energy out of him as a thetan, you know — parasites, people standing around. "What kind of a problem can others be to you in not-havingness?" brings up immediately the vacuum-cleaner quality of this particular universe. It really pulls the energy out of people.

So this is Dianetics, mainly, we're talking about when we say "man," "dangerous to his environment," and so forth. People come up through a tooth-and-claw strata before they get up into a sanity.

And we would go on with that till its lag was flat. And then we could go into solutions and say, "What kind of a solution can you be to havingness? What kind of a solution can you be to not-havingness?" In other words, we'd just use those questions.

"All roads lead through force;" that is another saw. "All roads lead through force." Anybody who has seen the now-nonextant lecture charts of the Philadelphia sixty-four hours of lecture will recall that one of the last lecture charts there has a big "Force" inscribed in the middle of the chart. [See lecture chart in the Appendix of this volume.]

But every time we use a solution, we have reduced his problems, haven't we? You see, a lot of the places on the track where you'll find this individual stuck, it's when he's got attained, suddenly, a solution.

What's a basic solution? What is the ultimate solution? The ultimate solution is demonstrated by this proposition: The solution to a problem is the problem. This is demonstrated in Perfect Duplication. The solution to a problem is the problem.

And then low-level aspects of the Chart of Attitudes are below this huge word Force, and the high-level aspects of the Chart of Attitudes are above this word Force. And, let us say, Distrust is below Force, you see, and Trust is above Force. But to get from Distrust up to Trust, it is necessary to cross the bridge of Force. If there's any bridge involved here anywhere in Dianetics or Scientology it is a bridge called Force. An individual believes that forces are greater than him-self. He believes he himself cannot cope with the forces around him. And we discover that an individual is very prone to believe that all forces are greater than he is.

If you have a solution to a problem which is the problem — in other words, if you have duplicated the problem perfectly — the problem will cease to exist, and you will have no energy, no mass, no location in space and no time, won't you? In other words, the solution to the problem is the problem. But the second that you did that perfect duplicate, you would have as-ised the problem, which would leave you with nothing. So solutions are the most destructive things to havingness you ever saw in your life.

Actually, he would never have to be afraid of force at all unless he him-self were being a mass of some sort. Force can only impinge itself upon mass of one kind or another. A thetan either mocks up a little piece of mass to receive sound waves, and so hear, or he is no mass at all and the sound wave goes straight through him. Well, he could do either one at will; so he could hear or not hear. There isn't any mechanical action, by the way, to hearing, really. One simply postulates that he hears and he hears; and he postulates he doesn't hear and he doesn't hear. That's about all there is to that.

A fellow gets a real top-flight solution, he'll wind up with nothing, won't he? And that is what people kick about when you talk to them about exteriorization. It is a solution. It is the solution to existence. Naturally. It has no further wavelength, and a fellow actually can exteriorize into no position in time, you see, or location in space. I mean, if he can't place himself somewhere he's in bad shape. But he basically can simply place himself some-where, not being anyplace, you see, and he would be an orientation point.

But as long as he's down below Force, as long as he feels that he is op-pressed by the enormity of space, by the savageness of electrons battering him by explosions, and so on, as long as he feels that he can be injured by force of any character, why, you will find him below this level of Force on this chart. He believes all force is dangerous to him. He does not believe that he himself can emanate force which would be dangerous to anything or anybody else.

But what a silly thing this is. People fight away from having solutions. Do you know that if you got a Black Five, and you asked him to really solve something — you know, make a perfect duplicate of the problem? — he'd start to get sick at his stomach. You've asked him to look at nothing. Every time you ask one of these fellows who is figure-figure-figure-figure-figure-figure every time you ask one of these fellows to actually get a solution to the problem he's liable to get sick.

Now, the only reason a word or symbol has any effect on somebody is because he's below the band of Effort. Now, similarly, the common denominator of all people who are having any difficulty in life — similarly — that common denominator is inability to experience effort. In other words, they can't work, they can't play, they can't move and so on. They're afraid to experience effort.

One of the finest things to make a person sick you ever saw in your life is come along, for instance, and point out the solution to a problem. The ultimate solution is nothingness. "Be three feet back of your head"; now he's in perfect condition.

In other words, force is outside someplace, threatening them. Now, the only reason a symbol has any effect upon an individual — for instance, the only reason you could criticize somebody and have him feel bad about it — is because your verbal criticism is associated by him with times when he has been hit, invalidated.

But after a person has gone downscale to a point of where he's very heavily embedded in energy, and so forth, now nothingness becomes very antipathetic for him to look at. So if you start asking him about solutions, you start asking him — just willy-nilly ask him about what solutions he's had in the past ("Now, give me some solutions you have arrived at"), you know he'll get sad?

Now, invalidation, criticism ... Criticism is the lowest level, and then we get outright, overt invalidation, and then tight above that we get this rather more understandable thing of the lightning bolt, see. And a fellow could only take criticism to heart if he were afraid of lightning bolts.

You give him some things — "Well, now what problems have you had in life?" — and for a little while, until he gets the bank drained down too much, why, he gets happier and happier and happier, you know. "Oh, my parents were so mean to me. And my father beat me. And my mother beat my father, and they both beat my little brother. And that made me beat my dog. And we all never had anything to eat but chicken and ice cream, and we had no place to sleep but a featherbed. Boy, I've had problems, problems, problems; I'm just about out of my mind." And you say, "Now, what solutions have you had in the past? What are some of your solutions?" The fellow says, "Solutions? Have I ever had a solution for anything? Let's see, solutions? Solutions? (Sigh!) Solutions, yeah. Yes, I had one: I left my family, was a solution. Let's see . . ." You trace back down the track and you'll find out that every solution is a reduction in havingness. You got that?

You see, he's got as criticism, actually, a symbol of force. If he's afraid of criticism, then basically he's afraid of force. Invalidation converts immediately, as you come upscale, into force. "Invalidation" means to be hit. But if you could impress somebody by invalidating him — telling him he really didn't think that, or he really didn't believe that, or something — it's because he's afraid of being hit. You see? And he associates the little criticism that you give him, or the contradiction that you give him, with force. He has been taught to avoid. And when even the symbol of force shows up (criticism), he then backs off. So he is below the Force band.

Well, you, you dog, are sitting there asking a preclear to solve his case. Bells ring? He's liable just to sit there and give you more and more and more and more and more problems, and more arduous, and more involved and further down the line, and so forth. Why? Because it'd make him awfully unhappy, he feels. If he is his body, a solution to the body is to have the body disappear utterly.

He is actually in conjunction with a body which is extremely liable to wreckage by reason of force. He's extremely tender. A body goes two miles, three, four miles in the air, it starts to notice it very badly. If it went ten or twenty miles up in the air, it would probably die — I mean, it can't survive up there. If it went five miles in toward the core of earth ... That isn't very far, you know. If earth was reduced to the size of an apple, you wouldn't be able to find five miles thick with a microscope. And he goes down toward the center of earth just five miles, and it is much too warm and intolerable. The body is a frail mechanism mainly. And he is trying to protect this body.

You get in religion the fact that a great saint is supposed to be able to dematerialize his body. I don't know what he's dragging a body for or where he's taking it to. But this is supposed to be the stuff. That's just a booby trap on the line, you see. Actually, he himself is no mass.

And so, as he is protecting the body — he'll eventually start hiding the body, by the way — but if he is protecting the body, he is protecting it from what? He is protecting it from space, from force. You see? And a thetan gets himself associated with a body very thoroughly, and thereafter he becomes afraid of force because he knows the body can affect force.

Well, a person has to be willing to solve something before he'll exteriorize. That's a little maxim I give you and bequeath to you this afternoon. He has to be willing to attempt a solution before he will exteriorize. And he won't attempt a solution until he has a great number of problems, and until he knows down to the core of his awareness of awareness that he can dream up problems ad infinitum.

Nothing can affect a thetan. Remember this: Nothing possibly can affect a thetan. As a matter of fact, as ultimate effect he cannot be affected. As ultimate cause he actually cannot himself be an energy bolt; he can only say he is. And here we have cause and effect. And as far as a thetan is concerned or an awareness of awareness unit is concerned, he would be at either end of this line, and he would have to have some kind of an energy mass at both ends of the line in order to be cause and effect, you see. There'd have to be some energy in there someplace. Well, he'd have to be protecting or holding on to that energy. He would have had to have postulated that he was some section of this energy to be affected or, actually, to begin some type of cause.

So what's the goal of this process? He's a little bit unhappy about being exteriorized. He feels calmer and he feels better, but there's something a little bit queasy about it, unstable about it and so forth. Well, the best thing that you can do to him, really, is show him that he hasn't had his havingness go all to pieces; he can always have something more. Actually, being exteriorized and being free, he can now have far more easily than previously. Well, you just don't tell him that; you run this process and he'll convince himself of it.

In order to be thorough cause, for instance, he could postulate a bolt of energy out in front of him. But he would have to postulate also that he was connected with that to even get the idea that he was being affected by it.

"Now, what problems can you be in havingness?" and on and on and on.

One of the most difficult things a thetan faces is really trying to affect another thetan or to be an effect himself, or to actually overtly discover the cause of anything. You see, the cause, the real cause of anything, has no mass and so can't be located in space. All right.

What's the limit and goal of the process? He will at first believe that he could get a great many problems. He starts to think and invent them after a while, you see. You didn't tell him to invent them, but he will have to because he's drained the bank flat, which makes him very unhappy. He's got all the problems which are obvious. Now he has to start dreaming them up.

So this thetan must have postulated that he was something, that he's being something, before he can be the effect of force. Do you follow that now? Overt-motivator phenomena, all these other things, can only take place if the individual has postulated that he is something that can be the effect of force.

You say to him, "Now, what about this business about problems in havingness now — problems in havingness here? How many of these do you think you could dream up?" "Oh, I could dream up quite a few." That's not the answer you're looking for. The answer you're looking for is "I could probably go on forever dreaming up problems in havingness and not-havingness." Got that? "I could probably go on forever." In other words, he has to have some conviction that he can invent an infinity of problems in havingness and not-havingness. He must be able to invent an infinity of it, and know that he can, for him to stay stably exteriorized. You follow me?

And so, one of the best ways I know of — if somebody has very poor perception — one of the most effective things that you can do with him to improve his perception is just ask him, "Now, look around you and find some-thing that it is safe for you to look at." "What is there in this room that's safe for you to look at?" you say to him.

It's a very important process, then, isn't it? But, then, we said that in two-way communication you could just keep asking a fellow "What kind of problems could you be to yourself? What kind of problems could you be to yourself? What kind of problems can you be to yourself? What kind of problems can you be to yourself? Give me some more problems that you could be to yourself. Some more problems you could be to yourself." And then for a little variation, "What problems could others be to you? What problems could others be to you? What problems could others be to you?" At first it'd be a limited number, but quite a few. At first he's hard put for them; he doesn't want to surrender any. And now he starts dreaming some up; he could invent quite a few. Now he can invent an infinity of them. If he can invent an infinity of problems, he can exteriorize.

Oh, and some of these thetans, they'll look and they'll look and they'll look and they'll look, and they'll finally opine that there probably is a dust particle under the couch that it would be really safe for them to look at. Ah, but that's an improvement. "Find something else that it would be safe for you to look at. Something else it would be safe for you to look at." And get an answer each time from him. "Something else it would be safe for you to look at. Something else it would be safe for you to look at." And do you know the environment becomes plainer and plainer?

Why? Because a solution is zero; the ultimate solution is zero. Recently I discovered the ultimate truth and the ultimate solution. Prove it too. It's right in your Axioms in the printed edition. The ultimate truth and the ultimate solution — they're quite obvious.

And now you could go out the same line, and you could say, "Give me something now which it would be safe for you to hear." And he'll get a condition or a concept at first: "Well, somebody could say 'Hello' to me, you know, or 'Good day' or 'How are you?' That would be safe to hear." He means the idea would be safe to pay some attention to.

Therefore, an individual who is short on problems will not exteriorize. He has problems in lieu of objects; he has problems in lieu of havingness. And you'd better have him have an infinity of problems before you go on up-stairs to heavier masses.

You want a beam of energy of something that it would be really safe to hear. But you just ask him this and he'll improve his consideration. The simple auditing command is "Give me something which would be safe for you to listen to." That's while he's exteriorized, you see.

Okay? Very well. I hope you know how to run that particular process now. You should, because it's right there in two-way communication and it's no different than that.

Now, you could run this process interiorized, too, you see. But it really is a Route 1 process, or exteriorized process. "Give me something that is safe for you to look at." Now, there's Straightwire questions which are used on an interiorized basis: "What wouldn't you mind looking at?" You see, that's the same sort of thing. "What wouldn't you mind listening to?" "What would listen to you?" "What wouldn't you mind looking at you?" Something on this order will pro-duce a considerable change on somebody whether he's inside or outside.

You could ask this thetan the same thing that you would ask him in a two-way communication: "What kind of problems could you be to yourself? What kind of problems could you be to yourself?" All kinds of machines will start to show up, and all kinds of problem machines and so forth. That'll stop him from using all this daffy machinery, by the way — all this daffy machinery that he keeps inventing and showing up with and asking you to unmock and so forth. That's all set up there so he can have an infinity of problems. He has problem-making machines, and a problem-making family, and he has a problem-breaking-down car.

But the basic question of R1-8 is: You tell him, "Now, look around. Now, what is it safe for you to look at in the environment, in your surroundings here?" And just get them to name item after item after item after item. "Now, what is it safe for you to listen to?" And if you wanted to go the rest of the way on perception, "What would it be safe for you to smell?" "What would it be safe for you to taste?" You see? And he gradually has to improve his consideration and he realizes that he can experience force — that there aren't forces immediately surrounding him here which are going to murder him, mow him down, blow him up.

Okay. That's all.

A lot of people, the first moment they exteriorize, will hear the auditor's voice while exteriorized, and it will scare them half out of their wits. And they will go back inside — boom! — you see, and then you have to dig them out again. Hearing something outside is very startling to them. That's because you're asking them to take on more than they can.

You've got to let a thetan learn that he can safely experience any force phenomena in this universe before he will cease to be trapped in the universe. As long as he is going to be afraid of force phenomena in this universe, he is going to be trapped in this universe. Do you follow me?

The only way you make him trapped in anything is get him to be afraid of the force phenomena. The greatest thing a thetan is afraid of, of course, is unknowns. But that's also taken up in Route 2; he's afraid of not-knowing. But then afraid of not-knowing is the consideration back of the consideration of force.

Okay. Now, do you understand this Route 1, part 8?

Good.