There's quite a bit of interest these days in Dianetics and Scientology. This interest is partially dependent upon the fact that life would like to be a little bit freer. Partially dependent upon the fact that life is interesting and that the mind is interesting too. And partially dependent upon the fact that very few people in the past knew anything about the mind, and they talked a great deal, and knew very little. And partially dependent upon the fact that if we don't do something about it, we're not going to have any planet here in a relatively short space of time. I would say within about fifteen years.

Other than that, there isn't any real interest why there should be any interest in Dianetics and Scientology.

You could see how this would be. I mean, man-apathy, apathy, apathy, you know? And his general concern these days on the third dynamic is best described by the immortal words of Hippocrates — "Apathy, apathy, apathy." And man's communication level today, unfortunately, is very succinctly described by the very immortal words of Epicurus — "Apathy, apathy, apathy." And there was a speech made one time by a very, very learned Roman who described the state of the Roman Empire just before it went boom, and that speech started, "Apathy, apathy, apathy," and ended, "Apathy, apathy, apathy."

This tremendous communication level and enthusiasm on the part of man is well understood when one recognizes what he's had for doctors.

Now, it's a funny thing when a fellow gets bad off, he knows that usually if he just had one friend to turn to or talk to or something of the sort, why, he would be much less bad off. That's a fact, you see? Man's always known that.

But the Roman Empire just before it went boom didn't have any friends to talk to. You know, either everybody was rushing off to the new church to drink the blood of the lamb or had just joined the new push on the palace, you know, or had just given it all up and had gone down into North Africa to sit in a cave. And this state of affairs didn't allow for anybody to have any friends, you see?

Well, as long as there were a few friends around or man could be a friend of man's, why, there wasn't really too much need of psychotherapy or interest in the mind and so forth, why, you could always talk it over, and you felt like you could get out of it somehow and so forth.

But with the advent of TV, the amount of communication going on from man to man has reduced markedly. This is a very strange and peculiar thing. But card games, bridge tables, decks of playing cards, cribbage boards; the usual paraphernalia once known to the American parlor, have to a large degree ceased to be sold. Stock in those companies has not just gone boom, it scraped bottom and then it lost where bottom was.

The actual fact is that entertainment — canned entertainment in the home and so on, is having a very marked effect on man in this country.

Now, in Great Britain Dianetics and Scientology are doing a higher level of communication, person to person, than it is in the United States. That's interesting, isn't it? Great Britain only has the BBC, and who'd listen to that? It doesn't have any TV.

We have a couple of people present from the British Empire, so I will temper the whole thing. I got into an argument with somebody in London. I said, "Well, it isn't as if you had radio, you have the BBC."

And they said, "What? What? Who? Really now! The BBC is wonderful. I mean, terrific programs, and quite — and so forth."

I settled both of these arguments at once and instantly, and says, "How long has it been since you've turned on a radio set?" That settled the argument. Months had gone by since either of these people had listened to the radio. But they knew they had a great broadcasting system. They very probably do, but they never listen to it.

Canned entertainment of this character is antipathetic, actually, to an active people. They would rather participate than spectate. The difference between Dianetics and psychology, for instance, is a very singular difference. It's the difference between participate and spectate.

Psychology spectates; does a beautiful job of it, too. They sit and observe. Sometime you are going to have the misfortune of processing, if you haven't already, some fully trained psychologist. He sits back and watches his bank go by.

And once in a while he reports to you on what he sees or thinks he sees, but that's auditing. Now, that's a fact. The spectator sport — football, just get — I'd like to see you get a little five-year-old kid to sit still sometime long enough to watch a full, complete, Class A, professional football game.

He'll watch it for a few minutes, and then he'll sort of get the idea that he's got the ball, you know, and he'll start to twitch, and so forth and then he's gone — he's gone down to get some pop or something of the sort. He's through as far as this is concerned. It's not any longer of any interest to him.

But the seniors who are present at the college game sit there with great obedience and spectate. And the freshmen, they have something in common with the five-year-old kid, but they'll lose it the next three, four years.

Participation has no substitute. Many a person is sort of looking at life go by, or he thinks his body or his mind is something that you look at or observe. And as long as he just looks at it and observes — he doesn't use it, you know — just looks at it and observes, he makes a tough customer when it comes to processing.

Now, it isn't that a five-year-old kid is saner than somebody who is thirty-five. Probably the thirty-five-year-old person is saner, really, than the five-year-old, but they have a different viewpoint, a different philosophy of existence.

Thirty-five has learned that it's dangerous to do anything but spectate. See, he's learned that's the thing to do — just sit back and watch. Let's not get in there and pitch. Let's not really get in there and stir things up.

So you process the five-year-old kid. Wham! Bang! He's all over the room. He's climbing on you, the couch, the walls, he looks at the pictures and so forth, and he goes on answering your Straightwire questions all the time he's doing this.

If the auditor were to duplicate him physically, it would be a very tired auditor at the end of session.

All right. The thirty-five-year-old person sits there obediently and spectates as the bank goes by. He doesn't get anywhere near as far in processing as the five-year-old kid would, see?

As far as sanity is concerned, this five-year-old kid may have birth in restimulation and everything else, but he still has a philosophy — he still has a philosophy of participate. He has not been disenfranchised from life. Nobody has convinced him that he is an alien.

See, he doesn't walk into a store and feel "I am a stranger here." And yet this song, with words and music, has been drummed in very hard into the thirty-five-year-old.

He walks into a store. He might not know what he wants to buy, but he sure knows that he is actually a stranger in that store. This he knows. Five-year-old kid doesn't know that.

He walks into the store — this is my store — rap, rap, bang, bang, clerk comes by and says, "Can't you mind this little brat?" and so forth. But he owns the store. He also has not yet had it pounded into his head once more that he mustn't touch the physical universe. So he gets into the toy bins and the nail bins and so forth, and he gets them scattered all around the floor. He touches the physical universe.

His parents and other people will finally back him off to a point where he will once more in this life content himself with looking at it but not participating in it.

Now, the actual physical well-being of a person is as good as he can participate in life. His mind is as good as he can use it, not as good as it will reel off a player piano roll or something. He is as well off as he can walk out here and learn how to drive a tractor or play a harmonica. You'll find out learning incidence drops as the years increase. But this is only this one factor: participation has dropped, and spectatoring has risen.

So if participation has dropped, naturally, the ability of the person to put what he knows to work has dropped also.

Now, you went to college, you got a full and complete education. Full and complete education — 100 percent. Gorgeous. Right across the boards. Got A in everything, particularly, let us say, in Germanic culture. That is in the department of idiocy, 861B. You got A in this.

And a few years go by — a few years go by, and somebody comes up to you and says, "Well actually, these Egyptians like Attila, are .. ." And you look at them blankly and say, "Well, I guess so."

What happened to your education in Germanic culture? You didn't participate with it in the first place. You learned it in four square walls. And you didn't use it afterwards. You could pick it up fast if you started to — wanted to. You could pick it up again. You could recover it and so forth.

But its recovery would depend to a marked degree upon your use of it. Isn't that so?

Well, what do you think of your ability in this physical universe? We got space, we got energy, we got objects. Listen, it's — you're just as at home in it as you use it. And when you stop using it and start looking at it, some auditor comes along and starts biting his fingernails up to the second joint. Because you sit back and watch the engrams go by, you know?

This is the preclear who is the lovely preclear. The one you want the most to audit.

Now, how — how does he possibly — what's the common denominator that gets into this condition? It is under the heading, actually, of games. A preclear is actually as well off as he can participate; not in murdering people, not in murdering pieces of paper in some government bureau, none of these things. He's simply as well off as he can participate in a game.

And you'll have some preclear come in, and you say, "Touch the wall," and hell go touch the wall, and touch the ceiling if you said so, and walk around in circles and so forth and his case level comes up, and everything is fine.

Well, what is the essential ingredient here with this preclear? He can participate in a game.

Now you get this other preclear. You say, "All right. Now go over and touch the wall." He says, "Why?"

You say, "Well, because — well, you go over and touch the wall."

And he says, "Well, why should I?"

And you say, "Well, go on over and touch the wall.

And see that spot over there? Well, go on over and touch it."

"Why?"

He can't participate, do you see?

Now, essentially the physical universe is a game. Game is a third dynamic operation, so is auditing, so is communication — third dynamic.

This universe would have no value whatsoever unless it could be used as a playing field. That would have no value.

Now, in the Philadelphia Lectures, 1953, and in the Doctorate Lectures, late 52, this was pretty thoroughly covered — this matter of games. And the truth of the matter is, is there — as far as the reason why is concerned, of existence — the reason why is a game. And when it ceases to be a game, there is no reason why.

So a person only becomes baffled about a reason why when it has ceased to be a game. Well, how could it cease to be a game? By a person no longer being a player. A person is no longer a player. A person becomes a pawn. What do you think a pawn on a chessboard thinks about?

It waits for somebody else to move it. It might sit there and look at the rest of the board maybe, but it's merely a spectator. Somebody else has got to come along and move it on another square.

Of course, there's one step lower than this, that's a broken pawn. But the preclear who comes in and sits in the chair and waits for the auditor to move him into various positions on the board and just moves simply because the auditor said so, kind of wonders what's going to happen and expects something to happen, maybe and maybe not. But he's just there, you know? He's in this situation of a pawn.

The auditor's mission is to bring him up to where he can be to some degree a player. If he can't play a game, he can't do anything because there's nothing else to do. That's the hideous part of all this. People come around and they tell you, "Now, life is serious. It's important."

You know what they're trying to do? Trying to make a pawn out of you. That's how you make pawns. You come up to some somebody and you say, "Now, listen. Life is serious. It's important, so forth and so on. And you are an 'it,' you know, and it's very serious and it's very important, and you move when I move you."

Next thing you know, why, you feel kind of pawnish or if you're in the army, privatish.

Now — by the way, there's nothing wrong with war except this fact: most of the fellows engaged in fighting the war are not players. The majority of these are pawns. And they didn't ask to be there and it's not their game anyhow. Somebody else is playing this game at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or 10 Downing Street or someplace else — there's somebody else playing this game. They're not playing this game, and they go over and expect to get mud up to their neck, and let people shoot at them and so forth. For whose amusement and edification?

I remember the last time I was shot at, I looked around and damned if I could see the Secretary of the Navy. He wasn't there.

So that wasn't a game, was it?

Now, what's the difference between a game and not a game? Well, there's two gradients. There would be the point above and the point below a game.

Now, we'd have this level here, we call it game level. Now, we have a point below it where the person is actually involved in a game but isn't playing it, but is simply being moved around willy-nilly, see? Well, that person is not — he might be part of the game, but he doesn't know anything about it if he is. See, he wouldn't have any knowingness. Therefore, any participation he had would be other-determinism, and he would be getting moved around.

Now, there's the point above that where there would be no game simply because there's no players. You walk in on the scene, you make a scene, something like this, and you look around you, and there's just nobody else to fight with, nobody else to play with, there's no other chess player.

Of course, your answer to that is at least to make a chess player. Most of a thetan's machinery and so forth is built on the fact that he doesn't believe he could actually create totally another chess player anymore, so he merely creates an automaton to play chess with.

He can create another chess player. But he's got to give that other chess player complete self-determinism. And now he doesn't any longer know what the other fellow knows. See, they knew basically the same things, and now all of a sudden they get different experience tracks. They'd have to have different experience tracks. They would have to have a conception of individuality, the two, and the made chess player would have to be the same as the fellow who made him to such a degree that the made chess player might even be confused about whether or not he made the fellow who made him.

So he got an establishment of identity, in other words. And this establishment of identity, individuality and so forth, would make a couple of players and then they could play a game. And you would have a third dynamic.

Out of this you could say life is not worth living. That's a book. Fellow by the name of Bishop Shenanigans wrote it — life is not worth living; and life is not worth living if there's only a first dynamic. That's the truth of the matter. I mean, it's not worth living if there's a first dynamic.

Now, there's two ways to become a first dynamic. One is to walk in on the scene and find yourself totally capable of playing a game and very interested in doing so, and there's no other side. Now you're in the silly position .of the football player who goes down and throws the ball from one end of the field and comes over to the other end of the field, and catches it. He can sort of pretend, you know, that he's two football players, but he's not sufficiently schizzy to do this, you see. You get around that with great ease. All you'd say is, "Another football player, presto chango, here I am, here he is, \\e-thum-thum-thum. Bang! We've got a game. Now each of you make eleven more and say you're all on my side now, and I'm coach or something of the sort. And here we go."

Boom! Everybody would know he was playing a game.

And the other way to get highly individualized and only-oneish and so forth is to get below this level of game. And one knows then that he's an only one simply because everybody else is a stranger. Nobody's involved in playing a game. There's not much communication going on here at all. But an individual knows himself to be an individual because he's such a stranger in the joint.

Now, there's two ways you could get into this. And there's one other way to know there is no game, and that is simply be blotto, unconscious, wiped out, either permanently dead, which is impossible, or at least parked on one of these bars around here with the other barflies or sound asleep in bed. Under these conditions, you wouldn't know about a game either.

But as far as the study of individuality is concerned, it is basically the study of the individual who has full capabilities for playing a game and has no other players against whom to play, or below that level is forced into the category of being the only one, and so of course cannot play a game because he is again enforcedly and obsessively the only one. His perception is so poor as a pawn that he can't even look around and find out there are even enemy pawns. He just feels confused when somebody moves him. Somebody moves him, and he immediately feels confused because there seemed to have been something else on the space or something. He isn't sure. It's all a big maybe. He probably bows down and prays to Yahweh or somebody at this point.

But when we wish to end a game, we mock up a player of such magnitude, fortitude and blasphemitude that nobody can find him, stand against him or do anything like that, and say he's on your side. That's a good way to end a game. Convince everybody that we have a secret, invisible, utterly powerful player who is on our side.

Of course, if you play this gag very long the other guys will — they'll mock one up, too, or use yours.

Alexander, at Tyre, by the way, captured Tyre by sawing away the pilings on which the city of Tyre stood. First demonstration of submarine warfare. But more important than that, that wasn't what captured the city. That was good mechanical… What he did actually was go outside the city and sacrifice to the Tyre god who was on a big wooden — god sat on a pedestal and was sacrificed and gave him offerings and bowed down in various ways, and the people of Tyre were absolutely certain their god could be persuaded or bought to such a degree that they quit. They even went in and nailed this god's feet on the altar — big wooden image — to keep him from walking out and joining Alexander.

And they said well — see, Alexander used this gag, as I said. Later on when people became more depraved, they didn't have them on — in visible positions on altars. They said, "Well, he actually lives on that mountain, you know? And that's the place. And they come down from there with lightning bolts and so forth. That's why we're going to win."

And that was all very well. But finally it got completely degraded, and they said he was everywhere all the time with nothing but vengeance in his heart for a wrongdoer, which means another player from the other side.

This, by the way, as a myth rather blew up right in our time. World War I. The boys of the British Army and the American Army were quite often found in the battlefield, with small bibles in their pockets, by the Germans, and these two armies, the British and American and French armies would go across no man's land and discover lots of Germans lying around with Gott mit uns on their buckle. So the whole thing got cancelled out and said there's nobody playing on their side just like there's nobody playing on ours, and skip it. And it's been kind of skipped ever since.

You really don't have a good idea of what an enormous change has taken place in the field of religion in the last fifty years, the last thirty-five, fifty years. There's been a tremendous change in the whole field of religion.

Why, people used to be able to use this player. Papa and Mama were always using this player, you know? They'd say, "You see, we're puny people, you know. We're just sort of mortal, but actually — if you don't eat your applesauce, God's going to get you!"

Well, in these various — various mechanisms... By the way, this is not blasphemy, this is just technology. I hope you understand that clearly. Religious allies are something man has used since the earliest days of the caves and the trees. Now, this is old stuff all along the track. This doesn't say that there is or is not a god. I'm just talking about religious allies. Of course, there are gods. Everybody knows there are gods. I know a storm god the other day — and can he swear. Anyhow ...

When we get into the field of games, there are certain rules that nobody ever practices, really, and that's this rule — and nobody ever looks at these rules — is don't knock out the playing field. See, that's an unwritten rule in games.

Now, we have the Chicago Bears or the Washington Penguins or something of the sort, and they're having this terrific battle in there back and forth, and they're passing this potato chip or whatever it is that they're using for a — the movies have a word for this — it's called a weenie. Anything that everybody is after, you know? The pot of gold. Anything like that, they call it in slang and movie writing, it's called a weenie. It's what everybody in the story is after. The gold mine. The lost ranch. Something of the sort, see.

Well, whatever they're using in this particular department they're having a wonderful time — what would you think of one of those coaches if at that moment he suddenly sneaked the stadiums, the goal lines, the goal posts and everything else away, and simply left two teams standing there. Now, wouldn't that be a dirty trick?

But what sort of a state of mind would an individual have to be in to do this? Boy, would he have to be desperate. That man's record must look like this. Every game lost for 74 trillion years. He must conceive that it's absolutely impossible to win a game if he is going to conceive that the only solution to this game and the only way he can win is to destroy the playing field. You see that?

I mean, this fellow would have to be measured with a micrometer caliper in order to tell if he is any distance at all above mud. That's really low down. Now, that isn't in the only-one classification. This fellow is far below that. He must be in a sort of an unconscious automaton sort of state to get into a frame of mind which demanded that he destroy the playing field. "See, I can't win, so nobody's going to win. That's what's going to happen. Nobody's going to win." Did you ever see the little sneak kid or the tattletale of the neighborhood go out and steal the ball, you know, and hide it or throw it over a hedge, or some Mama who was afraid little Roger was going to get his head bashed in in this game — she comes out and breaks the baseball bat or does something of the sort or steals something so the game can't go on?

Well, actually, it's far worse. You've really never known anybody, intimately, low enough to steal and stop the whole playing field so there could nevermore be any game. Well, just think it over for a moment. Did you ever know anybody that low? That's really low.

Well, the Secretary of War the other day, whose name I forget at the moment — the Secretary of Air — and we would love it if what he was blowing off was hot air, but it isn't. He used the beautiful sadness of Veterans Day and the gorgeous quiet of Arlington Cemetery to tell everybody, hee-hee-hee, hee — I'm just about to steal the whole playing field. I can tell you what he did when he was a little boy, but there are ladies present.

I could tell you this man's whole history just by reading his speech. If he can say with such glee, covert glee . . . You know, you've seen the glee of insanity? Well there's a position on the Tone Scale which is covert glee of insanity. Well, with this covert glee, he can tell you "Now we have weapons of such wonderful power that simply by adding a little gimmick or two in it, it'll not only blow everything flat on the continent, but they'll kill all the life anywhere around it, too!"

With such men in charge of our national programs — this is not blasphemy, although I suppose in another few years it would be called such to talk about a national leader in any but reverent tones. He accompanied this with the fact that he saw the only solution to this was for everybody to turn to God. The man didn't know he was right.

The only real solution if such characters are going to stick around and do things like that is simply to be three feet back of your head and be ready to jettison the mock-up and find another playing field.

So the solution lies in the direction of God, but the decision doesn't lie with God.

All right. Here's a game. Here's a game. It's going on very well. You've got a lot of chips on the board. It's not a bad game. You've got a tremendous number of vested interests. There's — oh, I don't know, the places you know where to go and the possessions you have, and the car that you tinker with, and what you hope to do with some of your time, and there's of course, your social security card, and everything the government's been deducting, and you have vested interests in all directions.

How would you like to have somebody tell you all in one fell swoop for no reason or cause whatsoever that every vested interest you have, that every child you have ever borne, that every dream you have ever dreamed, is now forfeit in this game? Would you like that? Well, you've just been told that by the Secretary of Air of the United States of America.

That anything you have done or hoped for or possessed, no matter how intimate and close to you, is forfeit. And he hasn't said that it's going to happen tomorrow, but if he can wipe a continent today, believe me, he can knock a planet apart tomorrow.

Now, I want to point to a planet, not with any pride, since I didn't have anything to do with it, but there's the fourth ring out here. Has anybody noticed the planet in the fourth ring? Oh well, you mean it's not visible? Well, it is if you run into some of its fragments. But there's a bunch of chunks (Is it the fifth ring?) — a bunch of chunks — (I don't count Mercury) which is passing around and around in an orbit around the sun. It didn't have enough civil defense either. But what happens here? What happens when you've got a point of desperation which says there can't be any playing field anymore?

Now, the individuals connected with this happen to have been classmates of mine. I know them. And one time I came back in the middle of the war, and I was sitting around in a drawing room with one of the names you have seen in the lights of the Atomic Energy Commission until the Atomic Energy Commission decided that was too good a player or something and checked him out.

He was sitting there saying, "Oh, we just thought of this wonderful weapon, and it does this and it does that, and they'd all die in agony and so on." He's going on like this, and several other nuclear physicists were sitting there and they were all going through this thing and then I did a very, very filthy trick. Only a Dianeticist or Scientologist would realize how utterly vicious such a thing is.

I turned to this fellow and I said, "Say, turn your head that way again." So of course, he did unsuspectingly. "Now, what — yeah — doggone you look just like Jack Bates! That's right! Ha! Oh, well." And went on with the con . . .

And he says, "Wait a minute. Who's he?"

"Oh, he's just a sailor. You look just like him. Stand up there for a moment. Yeah. Doggone, you look just like him. Hello, so forth."

"Yeah, what about this guy," see.

"Oh, nothing, except you're the spitting image of him. You could be brothers. Same height, same build, same color eyes, same shape of mouth. Hair cut the same way, same color hair, and I dare say in civilian life you wear exactly the same color clothes and have exactly the same manners. He's wonderfully educated, too. Had a brilliant intellect. Well, I tell you, boys, we were talking about cobalt."

Fellow says, "Now, wait a minute. What about this fellow? What about him?"

"Oh, I just felt a little bit sad for a moment. He was up on the foredeck, and he was handling some of this phosphorus you boys were just talking about, and it exploded and blew his face off completely. However, he lived, and he was down in sick bay for some hours screaming, you know, because phosphorus just keeps on burning. Nice weapons are wonderful things."

A deep calm settled over these nuclear physicists.

But I want to call to your attention something. All of these boys were at home safe. They were real safe, and if any one of them had ever had boo said to him by a two-year-old child, he probably would have gone halfway through the ceiling. At a great distance, they could be very brave.

Well, we have been thinking about this little thing for the last couple of days, and I'm not talking about it to upset you or even to deliver you any message or to tell you that it's terribly important or serious. This is not my purpose.

It's just on my mind, so I'm talking to you about it.

Here we have a situation where men have gone down to an only-one category — they have lost their — the (or never had) the ability to play a game — who are going to make sure that nobody else can.

Well, what's this mean to us? If we were to go out here and we were to process a lot of people and make them a lot happier and fit them better into life, and get everything going on the road, and then we're just going very well, and we got men in a much saner state, and then one day there's kind of a shiver like this, and the ground opens up, and the fragments go in all directions. Because one of these loops — I'm not — this isn't just libel that I'm handing these fellows. I mean I'm not just talking libelously when I say that they're crazy, psychotic, insane, nuts, that they hate people, that they despise individuals and so forth. I'm not being slanderous. I'm telling you the flat truth.

All of a sudden one of these boys has gotten scared or he's had a nightmare or something of the sort, and the general with good generalship and so forth, has said yes, the Russians are probably after us, and they stepped on the right button.

We get all of these people processed, we get everything going, and suddenly somebody else who is as nutty as a fruitcake can put an end to all of our labors. Just like that. Either by wiping — believe me, if anybody wiped the continent of Russia, the contamination in the air over the US would be sufficient to practically depress life out of existence. I mean, we cannot deal with explosives like this when we have an atmosphere that's only two or three miles thick. And we can't play around like this.

So after we go out along this line and we do all these things and so forth, somebody puts a period to this whole thing. Ha!

Well, of course, we could go ahead and do this if it were a game to us and we enjoyed doing it. Or we could do it and include in it the necessity to do something about it.

Whether we're running a garage or dealing with Scientology and Dianetics, the same computation exists here. Doesn't matter what we're working towards, it's going to be knocked off. Well, I can tell you the wrong thing to do. This is all we know, really, at this stage. We know the wrong thing to do. And we can demonstrate this in any preclear, we'll find him stuck on the track when he took no responsibility and did nothing. We find him utterly enmeshed and smashed and mired into the mud at those points when he said, "I can't do anything about it. I quit." So we know the wrong thing to do, don't we? Nothing.

Therefore, if the wrong thing to do is nothing, if the goal posed or the necessity about which to do something sits there, then anything you do is more right than nothing. Isn't it? Anything you do is not as wrong as doing nothing.

Therefore, you might as well — you could go into the most incredible fantasy. You could go into the wildest types of statements. You could go into the mildest and most ineffectual type of approach, and it would still be more right than doing nothing. Right? This is an obvious thing. The wrong thing to do is nothing.

Now, there is this saving grace: if the peoples of Earth were to recognize that somebody was about to snatch the playing field, I doubt if they'd keep on with the game. What would happen with twenty-two football players who were suddenly interrupted by the statement that the faculty or somebody was about to snatch the stadium? Whether or not they belonged to Ann Arbor and Wellesley, it wouldn't matter, see, it just wouldn't matter. They would turn around and they would fight up against the people who were snatching the playing field.

In other words, their combat team-to-team would cease, and it'd turn against somebody else, wouldn't it? I wonder if that might not happen here on Earth? I remember just at the end of the war a meeting of nuclear physicists at Cal Tech. They were very upset in those days, but the people who were upset in those days have since been discharged or dismissed and thrown away by the government.

They were upset because they had been told by the US Government that they would be a party to no murder. The US Government and their superiors had promised these physicists, who actually developed the first atomic weapons, that there wouldn't be any bombs dropped on an enemy country and that men, women and children were not going to be slaughtered. This was the program the US Government outlined. This is according to these fellows at Los Alamogordos. This is the story they tell.

They said that they would — the government said that it would get ahold of people from the government of Japan and would bring them over and let those people witness the explosion of an atomic weapon and would then ask for the unconditional surrender of Japan. You and I know that this is not what happened.

At the moment when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these nuclear physicists were utterly outraged. A group of them was utterly outraged. Just a few of them. And that few gathered together and tried to band up with Albert Einstein and several others — I was one of these by the way — and tried to put the brakes on military control of atomic weapons at that time.

Give you some idea of what happened, Albert Einstein himself was brought up before the faculty in the US Government and thoroughly dressed down for his participation and was caused to withdraw from any further activities and since, every member of that organization has been dismissed from government employ, leaving only the people who considered it no crime whatsoever to wipe out in the breath of an eye — a flash of an eye — 70,000 men, women and children.

Now, this is an interesting history then that atomic fission has, and it's held under secrecy. You don't hear anything about this. But can you answer me right now who is the man that makes the decision that explodes an atom bomb? I can't tell you. Possibly you could look it up. Maybe United Press would know, maybe. Maybe. Doubtful. But I can tell you this, he's not an elected representative of the United States people. Definitely not.

He'll be some appointee in some fashion or another somewhere. What causes this decision to be made?

We're not sure. The President has issued a lot of directions to the — to Congress that Congress again has the power to declare war. Only did he? Only does it? Or are they all going to sit up on Capitol Hill and argue about it for a short time while somebody says, "Well, provocation is so great now that we have no other recourse than to use atomic weapons and to give any announcement of this fact would be murderous"? But actually just as good weapons are sitting in the hands of the Russian government which is very far from an elected government, which is practically government by assassination, which has no great responsibility at all, and has never pulled the stops when it came to the use of weapons or sudden attacks. This is a curious situation, isn't it?

These men might behold themselves as the sole arbiters, as the only ones, as God himself, with the power to release against man weapons of this magnitude, maybe. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe these men are fairly sane. Of course that means the next generation of them will be sane, too.

Here we are surrounded in this society by lots of people who say, "Oh, well, there's nothing I can do about it." But clearly to me, this is and seems to be a situation that one can't say that about. For the first time we're faced with the fact that, the absolute fact, that exactly the wrong thing to do is nothing.

Now, whether one does this by electing a different government, by beating the drum, by causing another platform to come about, by taking an existing organization and with the use of communication lines and so forth, call it the Citizens' Committee of Earth, whatever you want to call it, see? And just say that we would like to see all the stockpiles piled up over here where a few guys who have their sanity in very good state can keep an eye on them, and that facilities for creating more of these stockpiles be dismantled and atomic personnel also — the boys with the know-how, be brought up to sanity. God help the auditors that'd do that, by the way!

Now — well, that's just a wild scheme isn't it? That would be very wild. But it's still better than nothing. Well, when it comes to a situation — before when these people have talked about atomic bombs or they've been told about atomic bombs or nuclear fission or the end of the world or something of the sort, they have to some degree within the limit of their knowledge been able to say, "Well, yes it probably will never happen. There's nothing much to worry about. What would happen would be a few major cities would go out and that would be the end of it. But according to the announcement of the Secretary of Air the addition of a small element to the — I think some derivative — cobalt or whatever it was he said — doesn't matter (it wouldn't be the right statement if it were issued to the press — that's the level of secrecy today) — that a hydrogen bomb, totally aside from its explosive, destructive effect upon its immediate area, would then be made capable of spreading out hundreds of miles distant in every direction, sufficient radiation to kill all life in the entire area. This great triumph, he announces.

Well, whatever and however this might hold together, it would seem to me that the wrong thing to do, even for us, and whether he knows it or not yet, for Joe over at the service station and Bill that's driving the bus, the wrong thing to do is nothing. That is the best conclusion we could make at this ' time — to just sit back and let some little boy in grown-up size who doesn't have much sense anyway, push the button someday.

Look what would happen to man faced with this fact. He doesn't recognize it yet. His cognition of it is not great.

He is asked to subscribe to the philosophy that there's nothing he can do about it. Secretary of Air asked him to do that — said just go and pray. There's nothing you can do about it. The Secretary of Air is wrong. You don't have to go and pray.

All right. Here is this situation where you have man faced with such an overpowering opponent that he of course says there's no game. He just can go into apathy. He's faced with the fact that anything he earns, does, builds, hopes for, any generation of men which he's supporting will go by the boards in ten, fifteen years, so he's just asked to just be shiftless, to make no provisions for the future, to do nothing, see? Just the existence of such weapons will tell him to do this.

And the other thing — if one government of Earth came about, one government, coalition of all governments instead of the anarchy now in existence . . . Government doesn't believe in anarchy; it believes in an anarchy of governments, however. If one government came about which had no great control over it by the people of the world, people of the world could not adequately control this one government, you would still be posed with the situation that nobody could revolt against it because its final answer would be to blow the playing field. Explode the planet.

All right. What are you asked to do in that case?

The fond hope would be that everybody would simply go into apathy and say this one government would govern.

There's a very funny thing about man. Very funny thing. He doesn't happen to be a coward. There is always some point of degradation where he will turn and fight. He's not a rat. In spite of psychology, he is not a rat, and he doesn't behave like rats except in one respect, is you shove him too far and he'll fight.

I have seen men pressed into the deepest apathy you ever heard about by the sudden emergency and explosion of weapons of war. And then resurge and find somewhere enough energy to continue forward and somehow or other patch things up and keep going.

I've seen things in the most incredible state of dishabille put back together again by men who a few minutes before had been in complete apathy about doing anything.

Man is a remarkable character. Man will do something about this. Not because I say so. Not because you say so. He will do something about it as soon as he begins to realize what this is.

He too will realize that the wrong thing to do about it is nothing. Put all the responsibility on somebody else, that would be the wrong thing to do. Even he will realize this.

Now, if man does realize this, a condition is postulated for Earth that is more chaotic even than we would care to contemplate. I would hate to think that would come true, what I thought and told a bunch of nuclear physicists would come through in 1942 when they were telling me about their working on a secret project and they were just about to blow up Earth. They were happily thinking about it even then.

And I says, "You know, you boys better be careful. I'm very careful that I don't practice in the field of nuclear physics because someday you will be hunted down in the streets and shot like so many dogs. So be careful about it." Didn't have enough responsibility to see this, but that might come about.

You may see a complete revulsion against science as such. Complete revulsion, to where any scientific accomplishment becomes suspect. This has happened, but remember that science has as its belief that man is something which was created from mud. That man is a thinking sort of a machine not endowed with any immortal life. And science is wrong, and I would put my chips on the person who was right. I always like to do that.

Now, whether we do anything about this rather than just think about it and throw it away or whether we actually were to develop some sort of an idea amongst us which would to some degree prevent a chaotic and anarchistic state of being from taking place on Earth, or whether we use Dianetics or Scientology like a long-handled spear and went straight into the heart of this situation and somehow or other pounded and demanded that anybody connected with atomic fission be turned over to us to absolutely guarantee his sanity, no matter which one of these we chose, we know very well the wrong thing to do is nothing.

As organizations we are the only people on Earth today who can say with any security whether or not a man is sane. We are the only organizations which can take a man and push him into a state of sanity where he can be trusted.

Therefore, I believe we have a certain responsibility. Maybe not the responsibility of taking over madly and going off in all different lines, and mad-dogging in certain directions, but we definitely have a responsibility. It doesn't matter whether governments know what we can do or the people know what we can do. We know what we can do. We should at least, if this is what we can do, then at least throw this into the fight and use what weapons we have.

And again I tell you the wrong thing to do is nothing. We do know what we are doing with the field of the mind. We can use it. How we would go about using it I would not be prepared to say. I'm still thinking about this. I don't know too much about it, but I know very, very well that this is a pretty good playing field. And I know I would do one awful lot before I let somebody snitch it and throw it away so there can be no game.

Now, I know I would do that. I hope that Dianetics and Scientology themselves can form a resolution to this problem. It isn't something we would like to do. It may be something we will have to do. But again, the wrong thing to do is nothing, whatever we do about it.

Thank you very much.