These Illustrations are to be used in conjunction with HCOB 23 April 1969 Dianetics Basic Definitions.

They are not meant in any way to replace any former bulletins, but to be used as an aid to quicker understanding and dissemination of Standard Dianetics.

Dianetics: Man's most advanced school of the mind. From the Greek dia, through, and noos, soul, thus "through soul" or "through thought. "

Mental Image Picture: Mental Image picture is a copy or photograph of the physical universe as it goes by.

A person records all that he perceives in the form of mental image pictures.

Time Track: The Time Track is the consecutive record of mental image pictures which accumulates through the person's life. It is very exactly dated. It also contains sounds, tastes, smells, sights, dimensions, color and many other perceptions a person experiences.

Everyone has a Time Track. Everything which an individual has perceived throughout his life is recorded on this time track from the beginning to the end.

The person makes the Time Track as time rolls forward.

Every moment of now – present time – finds the organism registering by perception some portion of the physical universe. He does this as an obsessive create on a sub-awareness level. It is done by an involuntary intention, not under the pc's awareness or control. There is a scene about every 1/25th of a second.

A time track is made up of different types of mental image pictures.

Pleasure Moment: Pleasure moments are mental image pictures containing pleasure sensations. One seldom addresses them unless the person is fixated on some type of "pleasure" to a point where it has become highly aberrated.

Engram: An engram is a mental image picture which is a recording of a time of physical pain and unconsciousness. It must by definition have impact or injury as part of its content.

An engram is a recording of something which actually happened to a person in the past.

Secondary: A secondary is a mental image picture of a moment of severe and shocking loss or threat of loss which contains misemotion such as anger, fear, grief, apathy or "deathfulness. " It is a mental image picture recording of a time of severe mental stress. It may contain unconsciousness.

These contain no physical pain – they are moments of shock and stress and depend for their force on earlier engrams which have been restimulated by the circumstances of the secondary.

Lock: A Lock is a mental image picture of an incident where one was knowingly or unknowingly reminded of a secondary or engram. It does not itself contain a blow or a burn or impact and is not any major cause of misemotion. It does not contain unconsciousness. It may contain a feeling of pain or illness, etc., but is not itself the source of it.

A Lock is a mental image picture of a non-painful but disturbing experience the person has experienced and which depends for its force on an earlier secondary and engram which the experience has restimulated.

The time track is made up of a lot of mental image pictures, particular experiences which either stand out or remain hidden.

The preclear is the effect of all this recorded experience. Almost all of it is unknown to him. There are no other influencing agencies for the preclear than this time track and present time. And present time, a moment later is part of the time track.

Shakespeare said all life was a play. He was right in so far as the time track is a 3-D, 55 perception movie which is a whole series of plays concerning the individual. But the influence of it upon the preclear removes it from the class of pretense and play. It is not only very real, it is what contains whatever it is that depresses him to what he is today. Its savageness relieved, he can recover, and only then. There is no other valid workable road.

The engram is the single and sole source of aberration and psychosomatic illness.

Aberration: Aberration is "any departure from rationality. " Used in Dianetics to include psychoses, neuroses, compulsions and repressions of all kinds and classifications.

Psychosomatic: psycho, of course, refers to mind and somatic refers to body; the term psychosomatic means the mind making the body ill or illnesses which have been created physically within the body by derangement of the mind.

Derangement falls sharply into two categories:

The first is the mental derangement, any irrational condition, which in Dianetics we call aberration.

The other derangement of the individual is somatic. This applies entirely to his physical being and physical ability and health.

Both these things are present in every engram: the aberration and the somatic.

Unwanted attitudes and emotions, bizarre aches and pains in various portions of the body stem from engrams. (To name a few; arthritis, allergies, asthma, eye trouble, ulcers, migraine headaches.)

Just how many physical errors are psychosomatic depends upon how many conditions the body can generate out of the factors in the engrams. For example, the common cold has been found to be psychosomatic.

In "normal people," in the neurotic and insane, the removal of these engrams wholly or in part, without other therapy, has uniformly brought about a state greatly superior to the current norm.

The end product of Dianetics is a well, happy, high IQ human being.

The Dianetic auditor handles the parts of the time track which cause the preclear to have unwanted attitudes, emotions, sensations and pains.

Each pain or discomfort is caused by a series of related pictures which form a chain.

Chain: Chain means a series of recordings of similar experiences. A chain has engrams, secondaries and locks.

Example: head injury chain.

Chains can grow to any length. As time goes on the person records new experiences in the form of mental image pictures.

Key-in: The action of recording a lock on a secondary or engram.

For example: At some future point the person may be watching a ball game and not having had enough sleep the night before or not eating properly that day, has made him very susceptible to restimulation. So he "keys in" and gets a headache and another lock is formed on the chain. This is restimulation.

A future head injury containing pain and unconsciousness would add a new engram to the chain.

More secondaries, locks and engrams can accumulate on the chain.

The years go by and one day he shows up at a church for some Dianetic counseling. By this time the chain might look something like this. (And he would probably be complaining of a migraine headache.)

The Dianetic process, R3R, is a standard set of commands and steps. The Dianetic auditor uses R3R to get a preclear to locate and examine the chains on his time track which cause him discomfort in present time. The feeling chains (pains, soreness, physical sensation) are the ones that relieve what's wrong with the preclear. Therefore, the Dianetic auditor asks for and follows down only feelings.

Those can be attitudes, emotions, sensations or pains.

Somatic: essentially body sensation, illness, pain or discomfort. Soma means body.

By using somatics (meaning discomforts, complaints, sensations, aches, pains) to trace back and by staying on the chain of only one somatic (i.e. headaches) you get back down the single chain without dispersing all over the place into different chains.

An incident is a series of mental image pictures held together by a common sequence.

As each incident is found on the chain, and the auditor has his preclear examine it from the beginning to the end of the incident – that is, from the point furthest away from present time.

The preclear is guided along his time track to earlier and earlier incidents on the somatic chain until he finds the earliest or Basic incident on the chain which actually started that chain and that somatic.

Basic: This is the first experience recorded in mental image pictures of that type of pain, sensation, discomfort, etc. Every chain has its basic. Basic is simply earliest.

Unburdening: As a basic is not at once available on any chain one usually unburdens it by running later engrams (closer to present time), secondaries and locks. The act of unburdening would be digging off the top to get at the bottom as in moving sand. As you run off later incidents, the ability of the preclear to confront it also increases and basic is easy to run when finally contacted.

It is a peculiarity and a fact that when one gets down to the basic on a chain (a) it erases and, (b) the whole chain vanishes for good.

Erasure is the action of erasing, rubbing out locks, secondaries or engrams.

The auditor sends the preclear through the basic engram as many times as it takes to erase it.

While running an incident, sometimes the whole chain will key out – that is, move away from the person so that it is no longer impinging on him and exerting its force and command over him.

Key-out is an action of the engram or secondary dropping away without being erased.

This is OK, but the basic engram is still there. It still holds the chain in place, and the chain can key back in at some future time.

So, what the Dianetic auditor wants is erasure of the basic engram.

This leaves the pc free of that particular somatic forever.

A person has numerous incidents which form various somatic chains stretching back along his time track. There is a basic engram at the earliest point on each chain. Most chains are loaded with locks, secondaries and engrams. A person usually only has a small number of the total of his engramic chains in restimulation at any one time. A sickness or somatic is usually a composite involving more than one chain. The above shows a person who might say he had "rheumatic" pains in his right shoulder and a headache. As you can see, he really has a composite of three basic engrams in restimulation impinging on him.

The Dianetic auditor audits the most available symptom first until the picture causing it is erased. Then find the next one and audit it to erasure of its picture, then the next. Sooner or later the "pc" will have a well, healthy body, health, stability and a sense of well-being.

The person's Dianetic auditing is now complete. He still has other engrams, but these are not in restimulation and so do not get in his way or cause pain or illness. These may never restimulate in the entire life of the pc, but if any should, the pc can receive more Dianetics at any time.

All somatic chains that were in restimulation have been traced to basic and blown. The pc is now happy and healthy. (Other engrams and chains can exist back on the time track but as they are not in restimulation they have no effect on the person.)