In order to detect, handle or remedy situations one has to be able to understand and work out several things.

These are defining the ideal scene itself, detect without error or guess any departure on it, find out WHY a departure occurred and work out a means of reverting back to the ideal scene.

In order to resolve a situation fully one has to get the real reason WHY a departure from the ideal scene occurred.

“What was changed?” or “What changed?” is the same question.

That “change” is the root of departures comes from a series of plant experiments I conducted. (The type of experimentation was undertaken to study cellular life behavior and reaction to see if it was a different type of life — it isn’t. The experiments themselves were later repeated in various universities and were the subject of much press for them over the world.)

In setting up conditions of growth I observed that plants on various occasions greatly declined suddenly. In each case I was able to trace the last major CHANGE that had occurred and correct it. Changes made in temperature, water volume, humidity, ventilation, greatly affected the plants in terms of wilt, decreased growth rate, increase in parasites, etc.

When THE change was isolated and the condition reverted to that occurring during the previous healthy period, a recovery would occur.

At first glance this may seem obvious. Yet in actual practice it was not easy to do.

Gardeners’ records would omit vital data or alter importance or drop out time, etc. A gardener might seek to cover up for himself or a fellow worker. He tended to make himself right and would enter falsehoods or reassurance that was a falsehood into the analysis.

A new gardener would seem to affect the plants greatly and one could build a personality influence theory on this — until one found that, being untrained in the procedure used, he would enter even more outpoints than usual.

At such a juncture one would of course train the gardener. BUT that didn’t locate WHAT had been changed. And one had to locate that to get the plants to recover. The conditions in use were extreme forcing conditions anyway and lapse of duty was very apparent. Sixteen-foot hothouse American corn from seeds usually furnishing 5-foot stocks, 43 tomatoes to the truss where 5 is more usual were the demands being met. So any change showed up at once.

The fact of change itself was a vital point as well. One discovery was that life does best in a near optimum constancy — meaning that change just as change is usually harmful to plant life.

The fact of isolating change in the environment as the sole harmful cause was one discovery.

That one had to isolate THE change in order to obtain full recovery was another discovery.

Change itself was not bad but in this experimental series conditions were set as optimum and the beneficial changes had already been made with remarkable results. Thus one was observing change from the optimum.

This would be the same thing as “departures from the ideal scene.”

The action was always

1. Observe the decline.

2. Locate the exact change which had been made.

3. Revert THE change.

4. A return to the near ideal scene would occur if one were maintaining the ideal scene meanwhile.

There are two scenes:

A. The ideal scene

B. The existing scene.

These of course can be wide apart.

How does one know the ideal scene?

At first thought it would be very difficult for a person not an expert to know the ideal scene.

For years certain “authoritarian” people in the field of mental healing fought with lies and great guile to obscure the fact that the ideal scene in mental healing can be known to anyone. Such imprisoned and tortured and murdered human beings with the excuse that they themselves were the only experts. “It takes 12 years to make a psychiatrist.” “Expert skill is required to kill a patient.”

The existing scene these “experts” made was a slaughterhouse for asylums and the insanity and crime statistics soaring.

They fought like maniacs to obscure the ideal scene and hired and coerced an army of agents, “reporters,” “officials,” and such to smash anyone who sought to present the ideal scene or ways to attain it. Indeed it was a world gone mad with even the police and governments hoodwinked by these “experts.”

Yet any citizen knew the ideal scene had he not been so propaganda frightened by the existing scene.

By constantly pounding in the “naturalness” of an existing scene consisting of madness, crime, torture, seizure and murder, these mad “experts” PUT THE IDEAL SCENE SO FAR FROM REACH THAT IT APPEARED INCREDIBLE. It was so bad a situation that anyone proposing the ideal scene was actively resisted!

Yet the ideal scene is so easy to state that any citizen could have stated it at any time. And often believed it was occurring!

The ideal scene of an asylum would be people recovering in a calm atmosphere, restored to any previous ability, emerging competent and confident.

The ideal scene in the society would be, probably, a safe environment wherein one could happily make his way through life.

Of course, the technology of the mind was the missing data. But the experts in charge of that sector of life paid out hard cash to hoods to prevent any such technology developing — a matter fully documented.

The gap between the ideal scene and the existing scene can be very wide and in any endeavor elements exist that tend to prevent a total closure between the two.

However, approached on a gradient with skill and determination, it can be done.

The mental awareness that something is wrong with a scene is the point at which one can begin reverting to the ideal scene.

Without this awareness on the part of a GROUP then an individual can be much impeded in handling a situation.

The mental processes of the person seeking to improve things toward an ideal scene or change them back to an ideal scene must include those who are also parts of the scene.

Seeing something wrong without seeking to correct it degenerates into mere faultfinding and natter. This is about as far as many people go. That something, real or imagined, is wrong with the scene is a not uncommon state of mind. Not knowing what’s intended or being done, or the limitations of resource or the magnitude and complexity of opposition, the armchair critic can be dreadfully unreal. He therefore tends to be suppressed, particularly by reactionaries (who try to keep it all as it is regardless).

Unfortunately, the continual battle of life then is between the critic and the reactionary. As this often blows up in pointless destruction, it can be seen there could be something wrong with both of them.

Particularly the inactive carping critic is at fault on three counts.

A. He isn’t doing anything about it.

B. He is not conceiving or broadcasting a real ideal scene.

C. He is not providing any gradient approach to actually attain an ideal scene.

The reactionary of course simply resists any change regardless of who is suffering providing the reactionary can retain what position and possession he may have.

A revolutionary of course usually

1. Is doing something about it even if violent.

2. Is conceiving and broadcasting his version of the ideal scene, and

3. Is planning and acting upon some means of bringing about his own ideal scene.

History and “progress” seem to be the revolutionary making his version of progress over the dead bodies of reactionaries.

And although it may be history and “progress” the cycle is usually intensely destructive and ends up without attaining an ideal scene and also destroying any scene existing.

The ancient world is filled with ruins over which one can wander in contemplative and philosophic reverie. These attempts to make and maintain an ideal scene certainly left enough bruised masonry around.

So it is really not enough to natter and it’s rather too much to thrust violent change down on the heads of one and all including the objectors.

Violent revolution comes about when the actual ideal scene has not been properly stated and when it excludes significant parts of the group.

It’s no good having a revolution if the end product will be a FURTHER departure from the ideal scene.

The pastoral nonsense of Jean Jacques Rousseau was about as wide from an ideal scene as you could get, and it and other efforts, also wide, brought on the French Revolution.

The Russian 1917 revolution had already been preceded by the democratic Kerensky revolt. But it failed because Russia being Russia was about a century and a half late.

Also the French Revolution was late.

And in both cases those who should have led didn’t. Lesser ranks overthrew command.

These and countless other human upheavals mark the fluttering pages of history and history will be written in similar vein again and again to eternity unless some sense and logic gets into the scene.

Revolt is only an expression of too long unmended departures from the ideal scene of society.

Usually the stitches taken to mend the growing social order are too weak and too hastily improvised to prevent the cultural fabric from being torn to rags.

Street battles and angry infantry are the direct opposite of the ideal political scene.

What was needed in such a case was an awareness of departure from the ideal scene, the discovery of WHY a departure occurred and a gradient, real and determined program to return the scene closer to the ideal.

The elements of improved mechanical arts and progress in the humanities may be utilized to effect the recovery. In any event (which is missed by the reactionary and his “good old days”) cultures do change and those changes are a part of any new ideal scene. So one does not achieve a reversion to the ideal by turning back the clock. One must be bright enough to include improvements in a new ideal scene.

Let us look this over, this concept of the ideal scene, and see that it is not a very complex thing.

One doesn’t have to be much of an expert to see what an ideal scene would be.

The complex parts of the whole may not make up the whole, but they are not really vital to conceiving an ideal scene for any activity, as small as a family or as big as a planet.

The entire concept of an ideal scene for any activity is really a clean statement of its PURPOSE.

All one has to ask is “What’s the purpose of this?” and one will be able to work out what the ideal scene of “this” is.

To give a pedestrian example let us take a shoe shop. Its purpose is obviously to sell or provide people with shoes. The ideal scene is almost as simple as “This activity sells or provides people with shoes.”

Now no matter how complex may be the business or economics of shoe sales, the fact remains that that is almost the ideal scene.

Only one factor is now missing: TIME.

The complete ideal scene of the shoe shop is then, “This activity is intended to provide people with shoes for (time).” It can be always or for its owner’s lifetime or for the duration of the owner’s stay in the town or the duration of the state fair.

Now we can see departures from the ideal scene of this shoe store.

One has to work out fairly correctly what the purpose of an activity is and how long it is to endure before one can make a statement of the ideal scene.

From this one can work out the complexities which compose the activity in order to establish it in the first place including the speed of the gradient (how much shoe store how fast) and also how to spot the fact of departure from the ideal scene.

This process would also work on any portion of the shoe store if the main ideal is not also violated. The children’s department, the cashier, the stock clerk also have their sub-ideal scenes. And departures from their ideal scenes can be noted.

It doesn’t matter what the activity is, large or small, romantic or humdrum, its ideal scene and its sub-ideal scenes are arrived at in the same way.

Statistics are the only sound measure of any production or any job or any activity.

The moment that one goes into any dependence on opinion, he goes into quicksand and will see too late the fatal flaw in restoring anything.

If the fact that anything can be given production statistics seems too far out, it is visible that even a guard, who would at first glance seem to be producing nothing but giving only security, is actually producing minutes, hours, weeks, years, of continued production TIME.

Probably the most thoughtful exercise is not conceiving the ideal scene but working out what the production statistic of it is. For here, the activity or subactivity must be very correctly staticized to exactly measure the ideal scene of any activity or the statistic will itself bring about a departure!

Just as the purpose from which the ideal scene is taken must be correct, so must the statistic be all the more thoughtfully correct.

As an example, if the ideal scene of the shoe store is given the total statistic of its income then three things can happen:

1. It may cease to provide people with shoes that persuade them to come back for more.

2. It may sell shoes without enough profit to cover overhead and cease to exist.

3. It may conduct itself with more interest in the cashier than the customer and lose its trade.

Probably its statistic is “percentage of citizens in the area profitably shod by this store.”

Working out how long it takes to wear out an average pair of shoes, any ex-customer would be retired from the percentage after that time span had elapsed from buying his last pair.

Given a fairly accurate and realistically updated census figure, that statistic would probably tell the tale of the ideal scene, which has its element of continuance.

The sole fixation on making money can depart from the scene. Abandonment of making any money would certainly cause a departure of the shoe store.

A commando battalion would have just as serious an examination for its ideal scene and statistic as a shoe store! And it would give a very, very effective activity if fully worked out. You’d really have to work out, probably better than the generals who think they have, the real purpose of a commando battalion (which is probably “to disperse enemy preparations by unexpected actions and overinvolve enemy manpower in expensive guarding”). The statistic could be something like “our individual soldiers freed from opponents” and/or “casualties not occurring by reason of interrupted enemy preparations.”

In effect the commando battalion would be “producing.” The results would be an effective increase in men under arms for their own side.

Knowing, then, the ideal scene and its statistic, one, by keeping the statistic, can notice without “reasonableness” or somebody’s report or some fifth column propaganda, an immediate departure from the ideal scene.

Remember, violent change only becomes seemingly vital when the departure from the ideal scene is noticed too late .

Opinion, reports, subject to outpoints as they almost always are, seldom tell one more than somebody else’s prejudices or his efforts to cover or failures to observe.

Now that a departure is seen (because the statistic drops) one can quickly go about noticing when and so get at WHY.

When he has the WHY of the departure he can proceed to handle it.

The statistic, guarded against false reports, and verified, is a clean statement not as subject to outpoints as other types of statements.

Whole activities have been smashed by not having a statistic of success but taking an opinion of trouble, and reversely, by having a statistic indicating disaster but a broadcast opinion of “great success.” Probably the latter is the more frequent.

It is not possible to locate WHY the departure soon enough to remedy unless one takes the most reliable datum available — which is the datum most easily kept clean of outpoints — which is a statistic.

You don’t really even know there is a Why unless there has been a departure. And the departure may be very hard to spot without a statistic.

I have seen a group producing like mad, doing totally great, but which had no statistic, become the subject of wild outpoints and even contempt within itself.

If an activity lacks an ideal scene and a correct statistic for it, it has no stable datum with which to rebuff opinion and outpoints. To that extent the group goes a bit mad.Group sanity depends, then, upon an ideal scene, correct sub-ideal scenes and statistics to match.

One of the calmest safest groups around had a bad reputation with fellow groups because it did not have or make known its ideal scene and did not have or release its statistics.

And it had a hard time of it for quite a while, meantime working exhaustedly but dedicatedly.

Planet, nation, social groups, businesses, all their parts and the individual have their ideal scene and their statistic, their departures and successes and failures. And none fall outside these data.