I want to cover with you this morning a little more about the various states of existence.

All we need to know about existence is that it is. Whatever complexity it has, it still is. It isn’t ever was, which is a most interesting thing about this particular nomenclature. There isn’t any will-be-ness and there is no was-ness. There is simply Is-ness. Speak about existence, and people spontaneously add to it will-be-ness and was-ness. So existence is not the word we want. We want the word Is-ness. We want just the word we’re using. We want that which is.

Now, all we need to know about existence is that it is, you see? Whatever complexityit has, it still is. Now, it isn't ever was, which is the most interesting part of this particular nomenclature. There isn't any will-be-ness and there's no was-ness; there's simply isness.

The Dhyana makes the error of “beginningless and endless time” but that’s not really an error. Probably it is an error as far as the translation of the symbols is concerned. We don’t know that the symbols that were used by Gautama to describe this manifestation add up into English as beginningless and endless time. We’ve already crossed one language jump and so we know that much less of what he was actually saying. But it was an interesting thing that you could represent this by a continuous line which joined itself. Any kind of a complexity of circle, in other words, would represent the fact that we had a beginningless and endless somethingness.

Now, if we talk about existence, people spontaneously add to it will-be-ness and wasness. See? So existence is not the word we want. We want the word isness. We want just the word we're using. We want that state which is.

Now, that is too complicated an explanation. In view of the fact that time depends upon a postulate you could say, yes it is beginningless and endless. You could say as well that it is linear. You could say, as well, that it is continuous. You could say as well that it is Eastern Standard, or Sidereal - it doesn’t matter now how you qualify it, having once made the postulate, you can then go on making further postulates. Nobody is going to limit anybody in making postulates.

Now, the Dhyana makes the error of "beginningless and endless time." But that is not really an error. It's an error as far as the symbols involved are concerned. Now, we don't know that the symbols that were used by Gautama to describe this manifestation added up into English as "beginningless and endless time" – you see, we've already crossed one language jump – and so we don't quite know what he was talking about. It was an interesting thing that you could represent this by a continuous line which joined itself. Any kind of a complexity of circle, in other words, would represent the fact that we had a beginning-less and endless somethingness.

But there happens to be, strangely enough, a true flying back of time. Time is a postulate. It doesn’t even have to be agreed on. You could have a time span all by yourself. You could shut your eyes and say, “and now I’ve sat here for a million years”.

Now, that is too complicated an explanation. In view of the fact that time depends upon a postulate, you could say, "Yes, it is beginningless and endless." You could say as well that it's linear; you could say as well that it is continuous; you could say as well that it's Eastern Standard or sidereal. It doesn't matter now how you qualify it. Having once made the postulate, you can then go on making further postulates. Nobody is going to limit anybody in making postulates.

“In the next two seconds”, you could say, “I’m going to sit here for a million years”. There’s nothing unheard of about this - that’s real time. Don’t be too baffled if you dream for five seconds about a five hour time span. You’ve just repostulated some time, that’s all.

But there happens to be, strangely enough, a truth lying back of time-there is a truth lying back of time. Time is a postulate.

Unless you continue to postulate time, you haven’t got any. And that’s the first and foremost thing you can know about time.

Now, it doesn't even have to be agreed on. You could have a time span all by yourself. You could shut your eyes and say, "Now I've sat here for a million years." In the next two seconds, you could say, "I'm going to sit here for a million years." Nothing about this – that's real time. Don't be so baffled if you dream for five seconds about a five-hour time span. You've just repostulated some time, that's all.Unless you continue to postulate time, you haven't got any. And that's the first and foremost thing you can know about time – unless you continue to postulate it, you haven't got any.

That fellow who depends on a clock up there to move time for him, is going to get in trouble sooner or later. He’s going to get, “stuck on the track”, and “out of pace with his fellow man”, because he’s depending upon their agreement on time to give him time. The only way he can have time is to continue to postulate time.

Now, that fellow who depends on a clock up there to move time for him is going to get in trouble sooner or later. He's going to get (quote)"stuck on the track"(unquote) and (quote)"out of pace with his fellow man"(unquote) because he's depending upon their agreement on time to give him time. And the only way he can have time is to continue to postulate time.

One of the roughest things that you will discover with anybody who is having trouble with his case is to have him put something on the future time track. He’ll look at that and say, “OH NO!” You say to someone, “Let’s make an appointment. Let’s make it at 2.05 this afternoon”.

One of the roughest things you will discover with anybody who is having trouble with his case is to have him put something on the future time track. And he'll say, "Oh, no!"

Oh no. That’s upsetting. That’s why when you talk to somebody on the street, you don’t tell him to come around to “see you later at your office”. You’ve undoubtedly picked up somebody who has attention on the subject of postulating time. The thing for you to do is take him right over to your office right now, if you possibly can. Don’t put something on the future time track for him any more than you can help, because the person here who is really in difficulty, who has all the usual human difficulties, psychosomatic ills and so forth, has stopped postulating time.

Now, one of the ways to do this: You say, "Can I have an appointment with you? Let's make it at 2:05 this afternoon."

And the moment he stops postulating time, he doesn’t have any.Now, how much time has the fellow got and how much time is he rushing and how much time is he sitting still with - all these questions are very interesting except that it all depends on just this one fact: your individual is or is not postulating time for himself.

"Hell, no!"

Looking over a very busy career I can see definitely the speed factor of composition as derived from strictly one postulate. I used to write about 100,000 words a month by writing three hours a day three days a week. Now, that’s a lot of words, but it never occurrred to me that it was a lot of words. If you simply postulate that there’s that much action and it can fit into that much time, you have postulated the time. There’s nobody sitting there agreeing with you or disagreeing with you. Actually, you’re just walking free. Well, one might as well postulate eight million words in one hour per month. This was just saying how much physical universe time could be allocated to the time span which I was using in which to compose. You get that as a difference.

See? I mean, that's upsetting.

Let’s take somebody doing a job of work - you will find something very, very peculiar. You find somebody who is working like mad, he’s just working, working, working, he’s just got to get it all done got to get it all done - and the end of the day comes and he’s got nothing done. It’s all in a confusion. He was awfully busy all day but nothing happened.

That's why, when you pick somebody up off the street, you don't tell them to come around to see you later at your office. You've undoubtedly picked up somebody who has attention on the subject of postulating time. The thing for you to do is to take him right over to your office, if you possibly can. You see that? Don't put something on the future time track for him any more than you can help, because the person who is really in difficulty, who has psychosomatic ills and so forth, has stopped postulating time. And the moment he stops postulating time, he doesn't have any.

And the next day he goes out and he’s so busy, he’s just got to do this and he’s got to do that, and eventually you find him just sitting still, presenting a very funny and silly picture. He’s sitting still, not even moving, not even talking, not even writing, accomplishing absolutely nothing, and now he is telling you how awfully busy he is and how he hasn’t got any time and he’ll eventually collapse down to the point where he has no time of any kind whatsoever to employ on anything, and that’s why he’s sitting there. But that is perfectly reasonable to him. That’s perfectly reasonable.

Now, how much time has a fellow got and how much time is he rushing and how much time is he sitting still with? And all of this is all very interesting, except it depends on just this one fact: Your individual is or is not postulating time for himself.

He’ll get so that he can’t start anything. He has no time in which to start it, much less to finish it. So he starts in originally by saying, Well, I haven’t got time to finish it, then, I haven’t got time to do it well, then, I haven’t got time to do it, then, I haven’t even got time to start it. Then finally, I can’t think about doing it.

Looking over a very busy career, I can see definitely the speed factor of composition as derived from strictly one postulate. I used to write about a hundred thousand words a month by writing three hours a day, three days a week. Now, that's a lot of words, but it never occurred to me that it was a lot of words. In other words, you simply postulate that that much action can fit in that much time. You postulated the time. There's nobody sitting there agreeing with you or disagreeing with. Actually, you're just walking free. Well, I might as well have postulated eight million words in one hour per month. I was just saying how much physical-universe time can be allocated to the time span which I am using in which to compose. You see that? You get that as a difference.

And that’s what happens to a person’s doingness. It’s his ability to postulate the amount of time, and the only confusion that you get into about this is the fact that we have an agreed upon time span.

Now, let's take anybody out there doing a job of work, and we'll find something very, very peculiar. We'll find somebody who is just working like mad-he's just working, working, working, and he's just got to get it all done, he's got to get it all done. And the end of the day comes and he has nothing done. You know? It's all in a confusion. And he was awfully busy all day but nothing happened. Did you ever run into anybody like this, huh?

But you might recognize that the time for an entire nation and an entire earth could thereby go awry.

And the next day he goes on and – oh, he's just so busy – he's just got to do this and he's got to do that. And he finally is sitting still, presenting a very funny and silly picture. He's sitting still, not even moving, not even talking, not even writing – accomplishing absolutely nothing – telling you how awfully busy he is and how he hasn't got any time. And he'll eventually collapse down to the point where he has no time of any kind whatsoever to employ on anything and that's why he's sitting there. But that's perfectly reasonable to him; that's perfectly reasonable.

How much can you do in an hour? What’s an hour? An hour is the length of time it takes for the sun to move fifteen degrees in the sky. Now the sun isn’t doing anything. What’s this co- ordination?

He'll get so he can't start anything. Why? He has no time in which to start it, much less to finish it. So he starts in originally by saying, "Well, I haven't got time to finish it," then "I haven't got time to do it well," then "I haven't got time to do it. I haven't got even time to start it." And then, finally, "I can't think about doing it."

When a country can still postulate time or a world can still postulate time, then an hour would be a tremendous amount of doingness. They would have a festival at sunrise and a couple of games, and then along about noon, why, have a feast, and that leaves them all afternoon, that leaves them all afternoon completely empty and that would be a good time to go boating, and then they would have time to practice up for the dance they were giving that night. And then they would finish up about midnight and say, my, what an idle day! This is the amount of time they could postulate in terms of doingness.

And that's what happens to a person's doingness. It's his ability to postulate the amount of time. And the only confusion that you would get into about this is the fact that we have an agreed-upon time span. But you might recognize that the time for an entire nation or an entire earth could thereby go awry.

Do we have time to do it, or don’t we? That is the question.

How much can you do in an hour? In an hour? What's an hour? An hour is the length of time it takes the sun to move fifteen degrees in the sky. The sun isn't doing anything. What's this coordination?

Now in view of the fact that time itself is merely a postulate this is very simple to understand. If it’s a postulate - does it have an anatomy as such? Well, yes - it’s a complexity of postulates, the way you look at it in this particular universe at this time, but not really very complex. Time depends on change. In order to have time, you have to alter things, because Is-ness has a condition following it called Alter-is-ness - which has to take place for something to persist.

Well, you'll find out that when a country can still postulate time or a world can still postulate time, then, an hour would be a tremendous amount of doing-ness. They would have a festival at sunrise and a couple of games, you know? And then along about noon, why, have a feast. And that leaves them all afternoon – that leaves them all afternoon completely empty – and so that would be a good time to go boating so that they would have time in order to practice up for the dance they were giving that night. And then they'd finish up about midnight and say, "My, what an idle day!" This is the amount of time they could postulate in terms of doingness. Do we have time to do it or don't we? is the question.

This is the way the postulates have gone together which make up this universe - not the theoretical way in which they could go together to make up a universe.

This is very simple to understand if you understand that time itself is merely a postulate. It's a postulate.

Get these as different things. You could go about this just all out in an entirely different fashion and postulate time and still have time, but it would not necessarily be the postulates which were made, and are made, and are in this universe right here and now. It wouldn’t necessarily be the same set of postulates, if we suddenly just dreamed it up.

Now, what is the – if it's a postulate, does it have an anatomy as such? Well, yes, it's a complexity of postulates, the way you look at it in this particular universe at this time, but not very complex.

So we have to subject the postulates of time to a little subjective proof, and get ourselves a test on it. And we find that we can make things persist by changing them. If we keep on changing something and change it and change it and change it and change it we’re getting persistence. But actually, what we’re doing is postulating the time for it to persist in.

Time depends on change. In order to have time, you have to alter things, because isness has a condition there – alter-isness. In order to get an isness to persist, you of course have to have something there about persist, which would consist of the time postulate. The way the postulates have gone together which make up this universe – not the theoretical way in which they could go together to make up a universe… Get this as a different thing. You see, you could go about this just all out in an entirely different fashion and postulate time and still have time, but it would not necessarily be the postulates which were made and are made and are in this universe right here and now. See? It wouldn't necessarily be the same set of postulates if we suddenly dreamed it up.

And when an individual has stopped postulating time he has stopped perceiving. Perception and the postulate of time are identical phenomena. Perception and postulation are the same thing here.

So we have to subject the postulates of time to a little subjective truth-proof, you know – and get ourselves a test on it. And we find out that we can make things persist by changing them. If we keep on changing something and change it and change it and change it and change it, we're getting persistence. But actually, what we're doing is postulating the time for it to persist in.

You should recognize, in auditing, very clearly, that time is a postulate. When you are working with a preclear who is having difficulty perceiving, you know that there is something wrong with the time postulate. Therefore there is something wrong with change.

And when an individual has stopped postulating time, he's stopped perceiving. So perception and the postulate of time are identical phenomena. You see? Perception and postulation are the same thing.

Alter-is-ness is that part of the time postulate which we can most evenly and closely observe. And we find that changing things brings time into being. It causes a persistence and the mechanism of Alter-is-ness gives us a perception of time.

You should recognize, very clearly, that time is a postulate. Because when you're working with a preclear who is having difficulty perceiving, you know that there is something wrong with the time postulate, therefore there is something wrong with change. See?

We find that somebody who is in a state where he believes he is about to perish will then try to change everything in his vicinity, right up to the point where he knows certainly that he is perishing, at which moment he will simply succumb, bang, and he will cease to exist or persist as that particular individuality and he as himself without that individuality will proceed on and pick up another body.

Alter-isness is that part of the time postulate which we can most evenly and closely observe. And we find out that changing things brings time into being. It causes a persistence; we get a continuance of time by alter-isness. The mechanism of alter-isness gives us a perception of time.

We get the tremendous amount of change or accomplishment which has to take place immediately before death. Here we have people all around the place who aren’t doing anything. Their affairs are in horrible condition.

We find out somebody who is in a state where he believes he is about to perish will then try to change everything in his vicinity, right up to the point where he knows completely that he is perishing, at which moment he will simply succumb – bang! – and he will cease to exist or persist, you know, as that particular individuality. And he as himself without that individuality will proceed on and pick up another body.

If we were to carry a little black bag and a stethoscope (that’s the Badge of Office - a little black bag and a stethoscope. One doesn’t quite know what they do with the stethoscope but it’s interesting. It won’t detect even whether a person is dead or not. A stethoscope is actually a reactive dramatization of the Serpent of Caduceus) and we walk up to somebody and say, “My dear fellow I must inform you,” having tapped the stethoscope against his chest so he knows he’s being hit by a snake, “I must inform you that we have just learned through this diagnosis that you only have three months to live.” The odd thing about this is that you would see a busy man promptly. He’ll really get busy. He’ll sit down in a slump for a moment or two. That’s just the impact. And then he’ll say, Let’s see. Time. Time. Oh. Alter-is-ness, Alter-is-ness, Alter-is- ness, Alter-is-ness, Alter-is-ness, change, change, got to get my will straight, got to get this straight, got to get that straight, got to get Mary moved out of that house into the other house I’m having built. Gotta have this and that, and the months go by and the years go by and he’s still alive.

All right. We'll get the tremendous amount of change or accomplishment which has to take place immediately before death. Here we have people all around the place who aren't doing anything, their affairs are in horrible condition, they're out on the street or in businesses and so on.

Well, he’d say the doctor was wrong. No, the doctor wasn’t wrong, as of the conditions of that moment, the experience of the doctor demonstrated to him that people who had this illness (who had not been told that they had only three months to live) died in three months. What he’s left out of it is the factor on people who have been told they only have three months to live. You tell somebody that he has only three months to live and he will throw into gear the only mechanism available to him to cause persistence in this universe. And that is Alter-is-ness. And he would change, change, change. He right away has to change his condition. That is the first thing he thinks of. One might think that it is just natural that he would do that. No. We’re talking on a higher echelon of philosophy. You tell him he’s only got three months to live, this is an unacceptable fact to him you say, therefore he’s got to change his condition. No - worse than that. Worse than that. If he has no time persistence he has to change his condition. The one thing he can do from which he can gain persistence is Alter-is-ness. If he would simply change the furniture around in his office because he can do that successfully, he’d live a little longer. It’s unsuccessful changes which fixate a person and cause a Not-is-ness to occurr.

Now, if we were to go up to these people, one after the other – you know, I mean, let's put on a – oh, carry a little black bag (I'd forgotten what galaxy I was in for the moment). That's the badge of office – a little black bag and a stethoscope. One doesn't quite know what one does with a stethoscope but it's interesting. A stethoscope won't detect whether or not a person is dead or not, you know, really – they often miss. It's not a reliable instrument, but it's a badge of office.

Now unsuccessful and successful are themselves postulates. “I am this individual and this individual is supposed to persist” versus “I am this individual and this individual’s not supposed to persist”. You could make up your postulate that way just as well as the other way.

A stethoscope is the dramatization of the serpent, of the caduceus. That's right. I'll have to write a paper on that. (Most acceptable thing I could possibly write for the AMA.)

But the accepted chain of considerations which go to make up, for example, art criticism, appreciation, win-lose and so on - we just have a set of considerations. These changes are successful as long as the individual is doing it, and the changes are unsuccessful as long as somebody or something else is doing it. And that’s very much part of the win-lose factor and also of the time factor. That’s self-determinism. One merely has made the postulate that as long as one does it one is successful. As long as one is able to accomplish the postulate this makes up wins. I am now going to pick up my right finger. I pick up my right finger. I won. That is, I made the postulate good.

Anyway, we have the little black bag and we go up to this fellow and we say to this fellow, "My dear fellow, I must inform you," having tapped the stethoscope against his chest, so he knows he's being hit by a snake (I think that's about it – yes, I'll have to write that paper). Anyway, we tap him and we say, "Oh! We have just learned through this diagnosis that you only have three months to live."

What has happened to the preclear is that he has made the postulate and then something has contraried the postulate to such a degree that he is fixed. He is fixed and cannot change.

The funny part of it is you'll see a busy man, promptly. He'll really get busy. Well, he'll sit down in a slump, you know, for a moment or two – that's just the impact. And then he'll say, "Let's see. Time. Time. Oh! Alter-isness, alter-isness, alter-isness, alter-isness, alterisness, alter-isness, alter-isness," you know, change – "I've got to get my will straight, I've got to get this straight, I got to get that straight and I got to get Mary moved out of that house into the other house which I've been building. Gotta have this and that." And the months go by and the months go by and the years go by, and he's still alive.

It just works out that way in this universe - not necessarily the most optimum set-up that could be made. When you made a postulate and then didn’t accomplish the goal postulated in that postulate (remember you were postulating time to postulate a goal) when you were unable to reach that particular attainment, then, of course, you hadn’t changed anything.

"Well," you say, "the doctor was wrong." No, the doctor wasn't wrong. As of that moment, the experience of the doctor demonstrated to him that people who had this illness (who had not been told that they had only three months to live) died in three months. What he's left out of it is the factor on people who have been told they only have three months to live. You tell somebody that he only has three months to live, and he will, of course, throw into gear – or not to necessarily say that he would throw into gear, but he could throw into gear – the only mechanism available to him to cause persistence in this universe, and that is alter-isness. And he would change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change.

Time is made by changing the position of something in space and so we get all of the neutrons and the morons vibrating at a vast rate of speed, but a uniform rate of speed, changing their positions in space. Well then we can look around at several of these particles such as the sun, earth and other things, see that they’re changing their relationships to each other in space at a uniform rate, and having perceived this, why then of course, we are looking at a change in time.

He right away has got to change his condition; that is the first thing he thinks of. You think that this is just natural that he would do that. No. We're talking on a higher echelon of philosophy. You tell him he's only got three months to live. "This is an unacceptable fact to him," you say, "and so therefore he's got to change his condition." No, worse than that – worse than that. He's got to change his condition. If he has no time persistence, he has got to change his condition. The one thing with which he can gain persistence is alter-isness. If he would simply change the furniture around in his office he'd live better. I mean, he'd live a little longer – the amount of change – because he can do that successfully.

There is no such commodity as time, it isn’t anything that could be poured from one bucket to the other but then this does not take place until a postulate is made concerning it. And in this universe the postulate had to do with change of location in space. And when it occurrred, then time occurred.

It's unsuccessful changes which fix a person and cause a not-isness to occur.

You could change - the location of something in space simply by lying about it. And you’d get a persistence. You’d come off of the As-is-ness. The moment you change something’s location in space you come away from As-is-ness and it doesn’t unmock and so you get persistence.

Now, unsuccessful and successful are themselves postulates. You know, "I am this individual, and this individual is supposed to persist." You could just as well say, "I am this individual and therefore this individual is not supposed to persist." I mean, you could make up your postulate that way just as well as the other way.

Now an individual is as well off as he can change things in location in space. Looking at the Pre-Logics, which precede the Logics and Axioms of Dianetics, we find that they have to do with an energy, and they tell you that a thetan is an energy-space production unit, that a thetan can change objects in location in space, and right next to that we have the fact that a thetan can create objects to change in space of his own creation. In other words, he can do all of these things and we get, in this universe (and this is pretty common in universes) those postulates as the conditional postulates upon the universe. Then one makes another postulate, that something can persist, and this postulate is represented as time, so when we locate something in space we are actually working with the time postulate. Persistence.

But the accepted chain of considerations which go in to make up art criticism, appreciation, win-lose and so on – we just have a set of considerations. And we say, "Well, they are successful changes as long as the individual is doing it, and the changes are unsuccessful as long as somebody else is doing it." And that's very much a part of the win-lose factor and of the time factor, too. That's self-determinism. One merely has made the postulate that as long as one does it one is successful. You know, as long as one is able to accomplish the postulate, this makes up win. "I am now going to pick up my right finger. I won!" You see? "Picked up my right finger; I made the postulate good."

If you observe that somebody has failed often, then what do you mean by failed? He has decided to move something in space and then hasn’t. In this universe, that’s the total anatomy of failure.

Well now, what's happened to the preclear is, he has made the postulate and then something has contraried the postulate to such a degree that he is fixed; he is fixed, he cannot change. You see?

Of course, he could simply postulate that he’d fail and that’s another anatomy of failure. He’s always free to do that. You can yourself do that. Not to remedy anything as an auditing procedure or anything of the sort - just simply say to yourself that you failed, for any cause, reason or anything else, just, “I failed and therefore I have to feel a certain way” and then feel that way.

When he makes the postulate, it just works out – in this universe; not necessarily the most theoretical or most optimum setup you could make, but in this universe it just happens to work out that this is the way it was. When you made a postulate and then didn't accomplish the goal postulated in that postulate (remember you were postulating time to postulate a goal), when you were unable to reach that particular attainment, then, of course, you hadn't changed anything.

You could do that, or you could simply postulate, I’ve won, I’ve not won something, just postulate that you’ve won, and the conditions of winning are feeling good, which is part of the woof and warp of postulates, “And therefore I feel good” - giving you a reason to feel good.

Well, the way you could make time was by changing the position of something, and that's the way time is made in this universe: change the position of something in space. Time is made by changing the position of something in space. And so we get all of the neutrons and the morons vibrating at a vast rate of speed, but a uniform rate of speed, changing their position in space. And then we can look around at several of these particles, such as the sun, Earth and other things, see that they're changing their relationships to each other in space at a uniform rate, and having perceived this, why, then, of course, we are looking at a change in time. Change of position brings about time.

Why don’t you just postulate that you feel good?

There is no such commodity as time. It isn't anything that can be poured from one bucket to the other. But then this happens to be true of matter too. You can't pour matter from one bucket to another, actually, unless you first made a postulate that you could. And in such a wise, time cannot take place until a postulate is made concerning it, and in this universe the postulate had to do with change of location in space. And when change of location in space occurred, then time occurred.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a winner, doing this. There is no sensible concatenation here, we are only talking about an agreed upon concatenation. This universe, and the postulates which formed it, is not necessarily the best universe that could be made. It just happens to be the universe we’re sitting in and it happens to be the universe in which our postulates are being made and unmade and it just happens that it went together on these four conditions of As-is- ness, Alter-is-ness, Is-ness and Not-is-ness, and these four conditions woven together make this universe act as it does and behave as it does and give you ideas of what a win is and what a lose is and it’s all on a postulate basis.

Well now, you could change something's location in space simply by lying about it, and you'd get a persistence. You'd come off as-isness. Now, the moment you change something's location in space, you come away from as-isness, and it doesn't unmock, so you get persistence.

But the most curious manifestation in all of this is the manifestation of time, and we have this matter of time occupying a considerable part of the field of aberration. And that is because time is the one postulate when an individual begins to depend on other-determinisms more than any other.

Now, an individual is as well off as he can change things in location in space. Let's take up the Prelogics and we find out the Prelogics – those that precede the Logics and Axioms – have to do with "a thetan is an energy-space production unit and that a thetan can change objects in location in space." And right next door to that, we have the fact that a thetan can create objects to change in space of his own creation. In other words, he can do all of these things, and we get that, in this universe – and this is pretty common to most universes – we get those postulates as the conditional postulates upon the universe.

We see the sun moving and we take our cue from the sun as to how much time we have. We see clocks moving and we take our cue from them as to how much time we have. And that tells us how much persistence we have. So we’re being told by these objects whether we can live or not. And that’s just the most curious of things in this universe, that one would take his cue as to whether or not he was going to persist, from whether or not the sun moved a certain direction and distance. It’s idiotic. So the sun did a figure eight. If I’m not dependent upon sunlight I am certainly not going to cease to live just because of the sun. And a thetan is not dependent upon sunlight. Quite the contrary, a thetan is dependent for his well-being on manufacturing his own jolly old energy. He’s not dependent on the sun manufacturing his energy for him. That’s just an intricate hook-together. And that again depends on postulates.

Now, he makes another postulate and that other postulate, of course, is that something can persist and that there is a time stream, that there is a persistence and so on. And this postulate is represented as time. So when we locate something in space, we are actually working with the time postulate: persistence.

The postulate of time could be simply cleanly made, in some universe, saying “Well, there will now be a continuance for one and all”, and that would be that. But that wasn’t the way it was made in this universe. It was made on the basis that when As-is-ness is postulated, in order to get a persistence, we have to practice Alter-is-ness. We have to change the location of something to get a persistence.

If you see somebody who has failed often, what do you mean by failed? He has decided to move something in space and then hasn't. Total anatomy of failure: He has decided to move something in space and then hasn't. The way it's recognized in this universe, that's the total anatomy of failure.

People get inverted on this in this universe, so that they take an Is-ness and they change it in location and it starts disappearing.

Of course, he could simply postulate that he'd failed. So that's another anatomy of failure. He's always free to do that. You can, yourself, do that, not to run out anything or anything of the sort, just simply say to yourself that you failed, not for any cause, reason or anything else. "I failed and therefore I have to feel a certain way," and so forth, and then feel that way. You could. Or you could simply postulate, "I've won." Not won anything, you understand, you just postulate that you've won now, and the conditions of winning are feeling good, which is part of the woof and warp of postulates, and therefore "I feel good"– having given you a reason to feel good.

Suppose you have a person move a postulate around with a mass of energy. He starts moving it around - and the energy mass starts disappearing.

Or why don't you just postulate that you feel good? It doesn't matter where you enter into this. There is no sensible concatenation here. We are only talking about an agreed-upon concatenation.

But what started disappearing was the energy mass, wasn’t it? It was not the postulate, particularly. He just got used to that postulate and he finally took it over as his own postulate. And a person could finally say, well if I move something around, it will disappear.

This universe and the postulates which formed it is not necessarily the best universe that could be made. It just happens to be the universe we're sitting in and it happens to be the universe in which our postulates are being made and unmade, and it just happens that it went together on these four conditions of as-isness, alter-isness, not-isness and isness. So we've got these four conditions, and those four conditions, of course, woven together, make this universe act like it does and behave like it does and gives you the ideas of what a win is and what a lose is and so on. It's on a postulate basis.

He has made a counter-postulate.

But the most curious manifestation of all of this is the manifestation of time. And that is our main interest here this morning. And we have this matter of time occupying a considerable space in the field of aberration. And that is because of this: It is the one postulate where an individual begins to depend on other-determinisms more than any other way.

He is perfectly at liberty to make a counter postulate, but this is not the postulate on which this universe is made. This universe is rigged so that that postulate will avail not, to an individual. That’s part of the considerations that make it up. If you’ve got something and then you say it doesn’t exist - you’re stuck with it.

You see, we see the sun moving and we take the cue from the sun as to how much time we have. We see clocks moving and we take the cue from them as to how much time we have. That tells us how much persistence we have. Oh, so we're being told by these objects whether we can live or not, aren't we? That's just the most curious of things in this universe, that one would take his clue as to whether or not he was going to persist on whether or not the sun moved a certain direction or distance. That's idiotic. So the sun did figure eights. If I'm not dependent upon the sunlight, I'm certainly not going to die just because of that.

That’s this universe.

And a thetan is not dependent on sunlight. Quite the contrary, a thetan is dependent for his good health on manufacturing his own jolly old energy; he's not dependent on the sun manufacturing his energy for him. That's just an intricate hook-together. And that, again, depends on postulates.

Alter-is-ness produces a persistence, but then we get two types of persistence. We get persistence as Is-ness and we get a persistence as Not-is-ness. The fellow is persisting but he doesn’t want to be there. Well, he’s persisting because he doesn’t want to be there. This, too, is a change, although he’s fixed in a locale. And secondly there is the fellow who is persisting because he wants to be there and he’s persisting because of change. They’re both Alter-is- nesses. An individual’s desire to change continues his persistence in the spot he’s in, if he continues his persistence in the spot he’s in, if he cannot move. But he had to postulate that he couldn’t move before this could happen. And so we get the dwindling spiral of the MEST universe.

Well, now, the postulate of time could be simply, cleanly made in some universe, and say," Well, there will now be a continuance for one and all," and that would be that. But that wasn't the way it was made in this universe. It was made on the basis that when as-isness is postulated, in order to get a persistence we have to practice alter-isness. We'll have to change the thing in location, one way or another, in order to get a persistence.

We sometimes see the manifestation of accumulating energy on a preclear. Every time a preclear has said, Now I am going to move, and hasn’t moved, or has said, Now I am moving and I am going to continue moving, and he is stopped (walking down the street, walks into a lamp post) - any time this has occurrred, he has lost, which is to say, he has got a counter-postulate. So he adds up loss as stationary.

Now, people get inverted on this in this universe, so they take an isness and they change it in location; it starts disappearing.

This universe, you see, brands everything which isn’t moving as innocent. And things that are moving are guilty, always. So he’s lost. Well how do you lose, then? By getting fixed in a location. That’s how you lose. An individual who is unable to move objects out of a certain location eventually gets to a position where, when he is trying to move these objects out of this location, he recognizes a failure and so he goes into apathy. He says, “I don’t have enough energy to do this”.

Did you ever have somebody move a postulate with a mass of energy around? He starts moving it around and the energy mass starts disappearing.

What nonsense! If he doesn’t have energy enough to move energy, why doesn’t he just postulate it some place else? But that’s another thing. He could say it is as it is and it would disappear and then he could postulate its existence somewhere else, and then change that around so it couldn’t be disappeared again and he’d be all set. What’s he doing picking things up?

But what started disappearing? It was the energy mass, wasn't it? Hm? It was not the postulate, particularly. He just got used to that postulate and he finally took it over as his own postulate. So what!

A drill - simply in moving things and putting them back in the same place again - will resolve this consistent continuous failure and so you get a process such as Opening Procedure by Duplication and its tremendous effectiveness. If it is done with a little bit heavier objects than is ordinary then an individual recognizes very thoroughly that he can pick up and put back into place the same object and win, not fail. You’ve changed the basic postulate by which he is working in this universe, which is saying that if he can’t move, and that he has failed.

Now, therefore, a person can invert in this universe, and we run into isness followed by not-isness. A person can finally say, "Well, if I move something around, it'll disappear." He's made it a counter-postulate.

However that may be we have these various conditions and the immediate point here is that time depends, in this universe, on Alter-is-ness. At least the desire to change. Anybody who is desiring to change is persisting in time, and people who do not want to change do not persist in time.

Well, he's perfectly at liberty to make a counter-postulate, but it isn't the postulate on which this universe is made. This universe is rigged so that that postulate will avail not to an individual. You know, that's part of the considerations that make it up: that if you've got something and then you say it doesn't exist, you're stuck with it. That's this universe.

The whole universe is rigged around these postulates.

Now, alter-isness produces two types of persistence: we get persistence as isness and we get a persistence as not-isness. See? The fellow is persisting, but he doesn't want to be there. Well, he's persisting because he doesn't want to be there. This, too, is a change, although he's fixed in a locale. Now, there's the fellow who is persisting because he wants to be there and he's persisting because of change.

They're both alter-isnesses. An individual's desire to change continues his persistence in the spot he's in, if he cannot move. But he had to postulate that he couldn't move before this could happen. So we get the dwindling spiral.

Now, we also get the manifestation of accumulating energy on a preclear. Every time a preclear has said, "Now I am going to move," and hasn't moved, or he says, "Now I am moving and I'm going to continue moving," and he's stopped – you know, such as you're walking down the street and you walk into a lamppost – any time this has occurred, he has lost, which is to say, he's got a counter-postulate. So he adds up loss as stationary.

This universe, you see, brands everything which isn't moving as innocent, and the things that are moving are guilty – always. So he's lost.

Well, how do you lose then? By getting fixed in a place. That's how you lose.

Now, an individual who is unable to move objects out of a certain location, eventually gets to a position where, when he's trying to move these objects out of this location, he recognizes a failure, and so he goes into apathy. He says, "I don't have enough energy to do this."

What nonsense! He doesn't have energy enough to move energy? Why doesn't he just postulate it someplace else? (But that's another thing.) He could say it is as it is and it would disappear, and then he postulates existence someplace else and then change that around so it couldn't be disappeared again, and he'd be all set. What's he doing picking things up?

Now, a drill, however, in moving things and putting them back in the same place again will run out this consistent, continuous failure, and so you get Opening Procedure by Duplication and its tremendous effectiveness. If it's done with a little bit heavier object than is ordinary, an individual recognizes he can even pick up and put back into place the same object and win, not fail: you've changed the basic postulate by which he's working in this universe, which is to say, if he can't move he's failed.

All right. However that may be, we have these various conditions. And the point we want to drive home, immediately and right this minute, is that time depends, in this universe, on alter-isness – at least the desire to change. So anybody who is desiring to change is persisting in time. And people who do not want to change, and so forth, do not persist in time.

The whole universe is rigged around these postulates.