I want to talk to you now about a subject or two which you as Clinical Course students better damn well be conversant with. Otherwise, somebody will come around and say, "Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap. Isn't that so?" And you'll say, "Gahhh!" And to avoid your use and overuse of this word Gahhh, I am going to tell you a few things here that might be considered of interest.

First and foremost of these is The Factors.

This piece of writing, The Factors, originally appeared in Issue 16-G of The Journal of Scientology and then appeared in Scientology 8-8008. It is also printed again in your printed edition of The Auditor's Handbook.

Now, The Factors are quite old. They are not new. There's nothing startling or fresh to be found in them. If you were to read them, however, you'd find out a great deal, because the funny part of them is, they haven't aged. They are just as true at this instant as they were the moment it was written, and there has been no reason of any kind to change them. And if you fail to know them, you will miss a great deal in Scientology.

Scientology is the study of life; it's an understanding of life. You could sail along forever, perhaps, in Dianetics without ever knowing anything about The Factors, particularly. But you sure wouldn't go far in Scientology, because this is the behavior and impulses of the spirit. And this is how two or more spirits get together and make themselves a universe. And this is actually the genus of the physical universe. There's no reason to suppose that this is not, since The Factors produce, today, some extremely workable processes.

I'm going to read you The Factors very swiftly here.

1. Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.

There's no modification here. I call to your attention that that is not a modified statement, it has no subjunctive modifiers or adverbial clauses added onto it. It is simply what it says.

1. Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.

And if you look for any further reason, in this or any other universe, you are going to look an awful long time without finding anything.

Now, somebody comes up to you and he says, "Yeah, but, you know, why'd God build all this universe, anyhow?" You know, he's running no-responsibility, no-responsibility. The technically accurate answer to that was

"Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect." It's an interesting thing, but that is why. That is what a spirit is doing, that is why he is doing what he is doing, and that's all there is to it.

Now, if we look this over very carefully, we will discover the truth of this simply by running it as a process. You could run it, just straight as a process. With any of the things you know about processing and the forms and techniques of processing, you could use cause and effect.

I demonstrated this recently and people were quite confabulated. Some people couldn't even remember the hour-long processing session. They had blanked out utterly on this. It was just too doggone tough, simply because it was an invitation to tear their entire bank to pieces. That's all. Just like that.

So you had people who were in pretty good shape, able to run this rather easily, and people who were in terrible bad shape, been complaining and up-set about this, and so on. It's still all right; you could have gone on running them and running them and running them on this particular process and they would have done nothing else but achieve good from it.

I asked them to elect cause. "Point out some things that are responsible for your being here." I phrased it in very many ways, you see. "Some things that are responsible for your being here." "Let's point out some things which are cause," anything like that.

And this is all simply asking them to run. out the machinery which elects other things cause than themselves. And what do you know, an awful lot of worry machines turned on and ran out, and a lot of occlusions turned on, and so on. Here was the center of all their machinery running out.

Now, there is a simpler process by which you could process cause and effect. Communication itself is simply cause-distance-effect. Because that's a primary purpose or "reason why" behind the universe itself.

This is a communication universe — communication being modified by reality and affinity. And emanator-distance-receiver could be another way of simply stating cause-distance-effect.

What do we mean by "cause"? Somebody may ask you that someday, "What do you mean by 'cause'?" It is the source of an emanation. Now, you have no other reason to define it in a more complicated fashion than that. There isn't any reason to define it more complicatedly than that. You'd say cause is the source of emanation. A cause-point is the source of emanation. It is the basic point of emanation. That is what we mean by cause. We always have to say point if we're going to engage in conversation on it.

Now, there could be an argument. You could have somebody standing there with a gun and he fires across a distance, and he shoots somebody else. And you say, "Well, what was the cause of this action?" Well, now you get into the silly operation which people get into when they start to trace backward causes. I've mentioned this one before to Units. It's an old example that runs something like this: The fellow fired the gun. So what was the cause?

All right, you could say, "The cause was purely mechanical, and the cause of the other fellow being shot was the bullet. The bullet is what did the traveling, it was the particle, and so that was cause."

"No, it wasn't. It was the powder."

"No, it wasn't. It was the firing pin."

"No, it wasn't. It was the hammer."

"No, it wasn't. It was the trigger."

"No, it wasn't. It was the fellow's hand."

"No, it wasn't the fellow's hand. It was the fellow himself standing there."

"No, it wasn't the fellow himself standing there. It was the situation which prompted him to do this thing."

"No, it wasn't that situation, really, it was the person who caused the situation where he's standing there, who was his wife. Because his wife got him very, very upset, and that's why he shot the other fellow. And therefore, his wife was actually cause of the other person being upset."

"And this really wouldn't be the basic cause, either, because the child of the family had cried all night the night before, and naturally, the wife was upset. So therefore, she made her husband upset. So therefore, he shot this other fellow. And that is what we mean ..." You know what these people are doing? They're putting vias on this line.

All we are concerned with — all we are concerned with — is the fact that a living thing, the first adjacent living thing to the direct communication line was the cause. See? Just the first adjacent living thing.

Never think of cause in terms of energy if you want to actually get a picture of existence.

You say, "The hammer of the gun." No, the hammer of the gun could never be cause. See, that could not be cause. The gun itself could not be cause. Energy cannot be cause.

And, as a result, the primary aberration on the track is electing energy cause. See, that's an aberration. It's electing energy cause. It is cause-distance-effect, where in the distance a great many vias have been interjected. And all of those vias have to do with space and energy. See this? Should see this very clearly.

Because, we have the first adjacent living thing to the direct communication line as being the cause. It is the livingness-distance-effect upon the livingness — got that? — which is the highest-echelon description of this action of communication.

Dead things, energy, space, are not sentient, they have no feeling, and so on, and they actually cannot engage in cause-distance-effect — only living things can engage in this.

And where you have energy masses apparently engaging in this cause-distance-effect game — after the departure of the living being, you see — you simply get a time lag in action. It's just more time, more distance between cause and effect again.

So let's never, as an auditor, pay very much attention to the vias by energy — unless we were to run it out directly as an aberration.

Have a fellow do this... .

By the way, you always process — a little maxim here — always process toward truth. Always process toward truth. Even if you see a technique I've written down or something, carelessly, you want to know the value of the technique and so forth: does it process toward truth?

In other words, does it process toward ultimate truth? Does it process toward a static? Is it validating a static? Now then, that's a good technique. And if it's validating an untruth — which is to say, an aberrative quality — therefore, it's not so good.

So this isn't a good technique but is a technique that you could run — having somebody look around and elect masses of energy or spaces as cause. It would as-is an awful lot of his tangle of thinkingness. It's not a bad technique, but it's not a particularly good technique. You see that as a possibility?

Now, we have "Cause is livingness." Let's never get confused about this. Cause cannot be an object or an energy particle or space. It can only be livingness.

Similarly, the actual fact is that only livingness can furnish a satisfactory effect to cause. The effect on objects is not very satisfactory.

Now, I'll give you an example of that. You start playing chess and you start moving chessmen around the board. There's no player sitting over there; you don't even mock up a player. You're just moving chessmen.

A man would have to be very badly introverted to go on for years moving chessmen on a board or pushing his plane across cabinetwork, or something of the sort. Usually, somebody engaging in this has got himself a daydream partner, or something of the sort. He's doing this work, he's thinking about somebody else, so on.

Life is attracted to life. Life communicates with life. And where it stops its communication line solely in MEST, you get into trouble.

Anybody who is stopping his communication line solely in MEST, or believes that his communication line is ending up like soldiers firing into a blank cliff — just winding up there, you see, in MEST with no further effect, so on — you'll have an almost immediate resultant boredom or upset on the part of the people.

If the only thing you were to produce an effect upon at all was matter, energy, space or time, you would not consider this was much of a game.

A game requires an opponent. So when we say cause-distance-effect and we're using cause as a noun and effect as a noun — we mean, specifically, living cause. We mean living effect, livingness. Because it is only the idea of living things which gives us the actuality of energy.

Delete from any area all the livingness in that area — if you could do this — and you would discover no area. No space exists without continuous creation by life. This is a primary lesson in Scientology: existence does not exist when life is not present.

Life can consider that it can exist and to that degree it will only consider that it exists. But a piece of space not observed or looked upon by life is no longer a piece of space.

You know, we could get the idea of "everybody left this physical universe," you see. And therefore you'd think the universe would just stay here, you know, and molder, and the planets would all go around and every-thing would turn around very, very nicely. It doesn't.

As a result of that, somebody leaves his own universe — his own bank, you know? Where's his bank? He moves out of it. Where's the piece of space that you created at some time or another? Well, you can consider it still exists.

Well, you can therefore restimulate facsimiles simply by considering that they exist again. And if you were very impressed with them at the time, then you will be willing to be impressed with them when you restimulate them. But otherwise, the facsimiles do not exist.

It's a hard point to swallow, sometimes, for somebody who is so intimately connected with space which appears to be always there, energy which appears to be always present. But the truth of the matter is, you don't have cause-distance-effect in the absence of life.

You can actually pick out the most aberrative period of any man's life when you discover when he communicated directly to MEST without further communication to life — only when he considered and thought and directed his communication solely at MEST. He can really be directing communications to all kinds of people via this MEST. But an alternate name for MEST would be via. It's never an end in itself.

He could get to a point where he used his vias, where he believed there was nobody on the receiving end — thus, the agitation you get into when somebody pulls a long communication lag on you.

You start living with somebody who doesn't answer when spoken to and you'll get yourself a silly picture there. You think you're talking to MEST. They're standing there in a MEST body and they don't appear to be home, and it's sort of like living with death; and it's quite disturbing.

Well, at the same time, then, you could look over and find when an individual had to communicate solidly and solely to MEST, and no further communication, in his opinion, and you will discover the aberrated or aberrative period of a lifetime.

Let's take a machinist who believes intimately that nothing he makes will ever be observed or applauded by anybody. He's just part of an assembly line, and all he's doing is pulling that drill press down and pulling that drill press down. Nobody appreciates it. There's just not going to be any further effect on this, you see. He's simply pulling the drill press down and pulling the drill press down. And after a while he'll go batty. Because he's communicating straight at MEST.

Now, you get this fellow who is a student, or something of the sort. He apparently is all right, but his communication factors and lags are all wrong. You see, he has not been communicating directly to life. He hasn't been communicating to life even via MEST. He has been communicating to MEST, and MEST does not communicate.

Another factor: You start talking into a phonograph which repeats things back at you. You're just talking to MEST, you see; there's no further life on the line. And you start talking into this phonograph which blabs back at you, and the repetitive quality of this, the lag between feeding your words to it and getting your words back again and so forth, is very, very aberrative. The only thing that's really aberrative about it is, is you're being cause and effect simultaneously. You're being cause of your own effect. And when people communicate to MEST exclusively, they have to then become the effect of their own cause.

Now, let's take the unhappy plight of an auditor who has trained up, through his own skill, a student to audit, and then gets himself audited by the student he has trained.

It's fortunate that an auditor, simply by obtaining results on preclears, can get an enormous amount of processing, because he'll never get it other-wise. He can get it from his fellow students who were under training at the same time he was, you see. But to train a student and then have the student process him is like talking to MEST. There was no sentient life at the other end of the line as far as you could tell. Why? Because everything that's happening there is a duplication of the auditor himself. Although he'll run and he'll do various things, it's a very curious manifestation.

Many auditors have been struck by this, but I am probably a basic tar-get on this line. I mean, getting audited is an interesting proposition, as far as I am concerned. It's like listening to a feedback circuit.

I was even audited one time by having somebody open Book One and read the ... They used to do this quite a bit. There was a paragraph in there — the first thing you were supposed to tell the preclear — and I had an auditor open the book one time and read this opening gun at me. Of course, I was talking to myself on a typewriter the moment he was doing that, see — printed page. Curious, curious manifestation.

And I wondered why I didn't go completely by the boards because of this interesting circuit. It's just a circuit; see, it goes nowhere. I just wondered why I didn't cave in entirely.

Well, actually, men in the past in trying to carry forward some kind of a program into the society have uniformly caved in or gone mad. You know why? They didn't get any ultimate effect upon life.

Every preclear I audit does me one awful lot of good. Because, believe me, for the last year, certainly for the last few months, I really get effects.

A psychotic little girl walked in here one day. She didn't really know her name. She knew of the HASI, and she knew I was somewhere in Phoenix, and she got here somehow. And it was an interesting thing. She couldn't tell anybody her name, although probably she did know her name and under pressure would have given it; but she was pretty batty.

And I ran her on nothing more strong than Opening Procedure of 8-C, and just ran her on it quite a bit. I did a little experimental work when she was out of the soup. Oh, I don't think she was here more than three or four days, and I think she went up to Wickenburg or someplace and got herself a job. She's apparently doing all right. She didn't get any auditing that you would really call auditing; she just got a few minutes.

Well, in view of the fact that there are so many varied experiences, and in view of the fact that the material you are using actually is not my origination, you see ... It looks all right to say that I originated and founded Dianetics and Scientology; that's perfectly all right — and in that organized form — but what these deal with happen to be the agreements on the whole track of life. These are agreements on the whole track of life. And they have been very, very sharply rooted out and exposed, and their common denominators put together, and so forth. And only by this reason alone, then, can any-body else audit.

You're auditing off of your own whole track, you see. So of course, then, you can be an initial cause for an auditing line, rather than a bypass cause. Follow this?

All right. Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.

Distance is involved here, isn't it? Do you know that if no distance were involved at all, all causes would be the effects, wouldn't they? So when we get no involvement of distance, or no involvement of space, you have somebody talking to himself.

So this would be no good, would it? So this is not a satisfactory experience, and so therefore life does not take to it. So we could say, then, that the toleration of distance was the principal factor behind this — the toleration of distance.

Well, the toleration of distance would simply be the confidence of the individual to produce an effect across what distance? The further away that he could produce an effect, the happier he would be. But it would have to be a direct effect — you understand that one line — really to be happy about this thing.

How much distance can you permit to intervene between you and the effect you're going to produce on another being? That's quite a question.

Now, I'll give you an example of this: A painter starts painting. And he's at first, young, in his glory. He's going to throw that stuff out there and people are going to see this and — all over the world — and they're really going to be startled. And he paints like a demon, you know — bangity-bangity-bangity-bang. And then he finally gets his first recognition: a snide, witty comment in some little-known critic's last paragraph. Some little-known critic's last paragraph mentions his name, see. That's not much of an effect.

So he struggles about this and after a while he begins to wonder if he really is being seen. Are these things being seen? At that time he starts to get serious about it, you see. Heavy MEST entering in.

But he's shortening up his lines. He's shortening up his lines, he's shortening them up, and shortening them up. At first it didn't matter to him a bit whether his family appreciated them or not. Pretty soon it begins to mat-ter whether or not the family notices these paintings and other people close to him notice these paintings, and he begins to show these.

A poet, by the way, begins to carry his poetry — no audience, you see — he begins to carry his poetry around and read it to people who can't get away. Because he's got to produce an effect with this.

And he eventually will get to a point where he has lost a lot of distance, see. He believes now that he can only produce an effect when the person is sitting right across from him.

Whereas, before, he believed that he could produce an effect on some-body thousands of miles away. See? Simply, he wrote the poem and somehow or another, in some publication or in some fashion or another, or by word of mouth, somebody a thousand miles away would be thrilled by this poem.

The next thing you know, he's trying to get an effect within four or five feet of him. And the next thing you know, he's the only one that can enjoy it. You see? He reads the poetry to himself, and he begins to enjoy his own poetry.

In universities, it is a very, very amusing thing that they start, in all creative writing and creative arts, with that as the highest goal — the production of an effect upon yourself: You should write, paint, architect for your own satisfaction.

Phooey! That's a terrible thing to do to somebody. You pick the lowest postulate that we can hit and still find sanity, and set that as the highest goal of creative work, see.

Now, this would be like telling a musician that he should play for his own pleasure. See? Nyahh! Play for his own pleasure? That's nonsense.

He wants to play far enough away — he at least wants to be able to get across a ballroom with an effect, you see. And when he's a real hot musician, you know, he is real hot, very confident, and so forth, the chances are, when he starts to play across a ballroom, he'll reach across the ballroom all right. And he will even see bellboys and ushers and things like this stop-ping to listen to that particular piece. That would be terrific satisfaction, wouldn't it?

It's not so good to know kind of nebulously that people are listening on the other end of a TV line or a radio line; that's not so hot. And it's horrible thinking of people listening to records.

It actually is distasteful to an artist after a while to think of everybody listening to that record. You know, he's there playing but he's not there playing. I've seen people feel kind of squirrelly about this. That probably is better than not playing at all, but it's not very satisfactory.

Four or five musicians who are kind of caved-in, you know, and kind of bad shape — they will get together for "jam sessions," or whatever word is current. (They change their slang fast.) And they will get together for these jam sessions, or something of the sort, and they will sit around and play for their own pleasure. Dah-de-dah-dat. They're the boys on their way out.

You don't play for your own pleasure! Any time you start playing for your own pleasure, or living for your own pleasure, you've stopped living.

And you also, oddly enough, stop playing. Because here's something else that's terrific: Your ability is just as good as you believe you can produce an effect, and it is as good as the amount of distance you believe you can reach to. You get that?

Now, there isn't, "You go to school and study enough years," see, "and you try hard, and you imitate nothing but the best old masters, and you go through vias-vias-vias-vias-vias to get to via-via-via." You'll get to via all right. You'll wind up playing for your own satisfaction. And immediately be-low playing for your own satisfaction is leaving the piano keyboard cover down and probably locked — no playing at all.

It isn't the amount of study which makes a racedriver drive or a trumpeter trumpet. It's how far away can he produce an effect. So people begin to believe that their fame should resound. You know, they know they can't blow a trumpet five thousand miles, but somebody five thousand miles away sure as hell better hear how good they are.

Well, if you had somebody who believed — this is belief — whose confidence and belief in himself was very, very great, he would receive it as incredulous, whether he had ever played a piece or not, that half of the Chinese nation were not familiar with his music! See, this would be something he could not tolerate, you know?

"This is not true! You mean the Chinese don't know Henry James?" That sort of thing, you know. "Hah! Look at this nut!" You know? That's the incredulity with which he'd receive it.

But if he had that much confidence, half the Chinese would know his name!

The critic believes that he functions in life. He believes he's there for a purpose. Yes, he does serve a purpose. A musician, an artist, a painter, any-body else, a house designer, will get so hungry for an effect out there some-place that he will, at last, even read about himself, and read the critic's columns. He actually will.

Now, people who cannot receive an effect will always read some secondary source, not a primary source. Primary sources are dangerous. They won't read the life of Bach, or somebody, written by Bach. But they would rather read the life of Bach written by somebody who at one time or another had heard a vague rumor that something had been written on the subject of the life of Bach. And preferably not even the secondary fellow, but they will read the college commentary on this second fellow's work. And that's about as close at they want to get to cause. Dangerous thing to get to cause — real dangerous, because obviously cause knocks your head off. That's the obvious thing. That's what they know. They're very certain of this. Nobody ever causes anything but disaster and horror, and so on. They know this quite well, so they can't be an effect.

Now, here, let's take this fellow again — this musician. We start to audit him. And we discover that one time he believed that when he played there were people in other bands and so forth — they just kind of turned a little bit pale shade of green, and that dance floors elsewhere were quite modified all around the place because of the playing style of his, which was at least being copied and imitated.

You know, he believed he was really changing things, and so forth. He was creating an effect. That's when he first started out; he had some inkling of this.

And then he began to close down, see. And it finally got to the floor he was playing for. That was all, you see.

And then it started to close down again, like in symphony orchestras, where they solely play to find out whether or not the conductor is going to say something to them or give them a pat on the shoulder. They're playing for the conductor, and then they're playing for the music rack. And along about the time they're playing for the music rack, they're off their rockers. They start acting like that.

So that's a dwindling spiral — that narrowing distance which an individual gets. Now, does this apply only to an artist? This applies to every living creature alive.

An ant knows he can produce an effect, doesn't he? But what distance can he tolerate for that effect? See, he's still in there pitching, but he can only produce an effect which you yourself would find it quite difficult to observe — it's so short, so narrow.

Now, there is your dwindling spiral. Your dwindling spiral is that shortening distance of effect. Now, a person should be willing to be an effect. Do you know what happens to them when they're not willing to be an effect at the same time? They go out of a two-way communication system, and they start throwing up barriers and barricades so as to keep incoming effects from affecting them, outside causes from affecting them. And the second they do this, they impede their own outward flows. So a person's own outward flows are impeded by the barricades he has erected in front of him to keep other people from flowing at him.

You'll still find some fellow obsessively communicating outward, with so many barricades up that actually what he's saying, if he were saying any-thing, is so beclouded — after it's wandered through these circuits and barricades — that it's incomprehensible. You see?

It isn't a straight line at all. It's a tremendous number of vias, and you can't get anything in to this person. This person is not in good shape — to make an understatement.

All right. There would be indicated, a very, very high echelon process — just from this number one of The Factors — and that would be "On what could you produce an effect?" or "On whom could you produce an effect?" See, that would just be the straight line, and then you'd make the guy point out the distance every time.

Now, I'll tell you something very funny. I've been talking to you here for quite a little while, but if you ran that process, a preclear is liable to come up and tell you all about it. He's liable to tell you everything I've just told you, because that's where I got it — after I had figured it out first.

Anyhow, when you ask somebody, "On whom could you produce an effect?" they're liable to just say, "Mahh. Gongg!" comm lag, comm lag, comm lag, comm lag, and then finally, "Myself." Well, here is the guy who is auditing himself, see, and he is closed way in.

Now, an artist, actually, will quite occasionally go into the field of the mind. Why? Why?

He got so damned tired of not knowing whether or not he was producing an effect out there. He's trying to affect a mind, you see, one way or the other, get a reaction in it. He finally brings it up close and starts to audit it. He can produce an effect on it through auditing. He learns he can produce an effect on it through auditing, where he couldn't produce an effect on it by creating mock-ups and beauty and so forth.

In other words, he sweeps his audience in close. But, it really doesn't matter to him whether he produces his effect with a trumpet, a book, a fast car, or otherwise, he's still trying to produce an effect. The means by which he produces the effect are significances which are relatively unimportant, so long as the effect is produced.

The criminal who goes out and does crimes and gets caught is simply trying to produce an effect upon a wider public. He wants to be known — curious thing. So the cops go around and make it possible for him to be known.

In a higher-toned age — 1868 edition of the Washington Intelligencer; May 7th, I think it is — it says on the back page, small columns, lower part of the back page, in rather smaller type than the rest of the issue, "Police News." There's a little tiny section in the back of the paper — Police News.

On the front page it talked about speeches and nobility and determinism and the policy of the government and the beautiful speech that had been made someplace or another, and the sentiments of some other nation, an ambassador to Greece, a statue was dedicated — headline news, see. Big stuff!

Way over here in the back: "Police News." So I looked at this with some curiosa. I looked down the line and I found out in the first paragraph, "Madam something-or-other was murdered last night in the Washington Opera House, and no suspects have as yet been located." Next paragraph.

Can you imagine that today? Hm? Can you imagine it? It was a big, high-toned society in those days — give you an oddity of the difference of tones of countries.

That, by the way, is the newspaper of today in Spain. Police News: a little tiny "Madam Zaza was murdered last night. The police haven't arrested anybody yet." "Jo-Jo, the notorious pickpocket, was released from jail yesterday." "Eighteen people were murdered in the mountains, Saturday." That they'd mention it at all is quite interesting.

As people begin to doubt their ability to make an effect, and when they even get to a point of where they can't make an effect on themselves person-ally, they then go in for cruelty, for murder and for any number of crimes.

Now, if people are in good shape, they will make their effects in the aesthetic band. And if they're in bad shape, they will make their effects in the cruelty or murder band. And the difference between the two people is that the people who can produce the aesthetics have a tremendous distance tolerance for an effect. Oh, they're perfectly confident of producing an effect a thousand miles away — great confidence.

And the fellow who is murder-happy and so forth, he's got to have his victim right square in front of him — right square in front of him — and has to do something horrible to him so as to obliterate him, to convince him, you see, that an effect has been produced.

Now, as we look at this whole universe, we will see, then, that things have a tendency to get solid. The distance tolerance becomes less and less and less, and you finally get an electron. You get molecules. You get masses. You get walls, barriers, barricades. You get heavy masses, don't you?

Therefore, you would look for a heavy-planet race, in conquering races around it, to be a very cruel, heavy-bodied, lumbering sort of a race, and the conquest to be strewn with a great deal of cruelty. That's a heavy-gravity planet.

Let's take a gravity planet of five times the gravity of earth, and a people on that planet, of course, would probably use very violent weapons, Fac One machines and so forth. And they would consider it almost a crime for people to be light-minded and airy and aesthetic and thoughtful, you see. And in conquering neighboring planets, or something like that, every time they'd hit a light-gravity planet, or something like that, they'd be outraged with all this tremendous amount of freedom that's going on here.

Well, these fellows could get away from them too quick. They produced an effect too near. See, it's just a horrible thing. And so they try to close that distance any way they possibly could, and then get the other people that they located to close the distance too, see, and force them to obsessively close distance.

I didn't mean to go off into space opera all of a sudden, but it's a very legitimate subject as far as we're talking about. The Fac One machinery that you find in people's banks was introduced there by a heavy-gravity people — who, by the way, had a horrible effect — received a horrible effect from the people they were operating against. They occasionally picked them up for interpreters and spit out their teeth every morning at breakfast. I'm going a little too fast; I mean they'd pick up one of these people who could produce an effect at a considerable distance and be damn fool enough to let this person sit at the same table with them.

These people were very, very solid. They were very easy to produce an effect upon. So all you had to do was postulate that their teeth would fall out on the table and they probably would. You see, postulates really stick with these people.

I'm going very fast and far when I'm talking to you about these almost fairy tale legends. But nevertheless, you see that gravity would have some-thing to do with this, wouldn't it? And a lightness and airiness.

The funny part of it is, as you go up toward freedom, you get in more and more into an aesthetic band; you get into, simultaneously, a confidence band. You get higher and higher and higher, up the line, until you finally achieve something like a violent, fast, highly ecstatic, tremendously emotional type of life. It would be enough for an individual simply to postulate that freedom — it won't as-is, you know — and postulate it and postulate it and postulate it and postulate it, and he'll have it!

But all he'd have to postulate is "I can produce an effect from here to there. A little further. A little further. A little further. A little further." And just keep saying it, see. "Postulate a little effect — further, further, further, further, further, further," until he absolutely sold himself, you see, on the point that he could produce one at ten thousand miles. You'll exteriorize somebody rapidly if you just know that first part of The Factors. I'll go over the rest of these more rapidly.

2. In the beginning and forever is the decision, and the decision is TO BE. The first beingness is orientation point, and that makes space.

3. The first action of beingness is to assume a viewpoint.

And of course, that is just what I said. The first action of beingness is assume a viewpoint. Now you're somebody who creates symbols.

4. The second action of beingness is to extend from the viewpoint, points to view, which are dimension points.

Which is just what I said.

5. Thus there is space created, for the definition of space is: viewpoint of dimension. And the purpose of a dimension point is space and a point of view.

You can't be in communication with anybody unless you've got some space that they can mesh with, and an anchor point that they can contact, see. This is the way we get a distance and an effect. It's always done by a via, but the less vias, the more effect.

6. The action of a dimension point is reaching and withdrawing.

You can still turn on psychosis on an individual: Just tell him, "Get the idea that you can't reach but must reach, or that you can't withdraw but must withdraw," and get an interlock between these two things and the glee of insanity and all other kinds of emotions will run off or be created simply by that. Reach and withdraw, reach and withdraw, reach and withdraw — that's what life is doing. And when it forgets to withdraw after it has reached, it gets stuck. So anybody who is stuck in anything is simply over-looking withdrawing after they've reached.

7. And from the viewpoint to the dimension points there are connection and interchange. Thus new dimension points are made. Thus there is communication.

That's what I just said again. You make a dimension point out there, somebody else makes a dimension point out there, and you've got two pieces of space. If you can get them interlocked, which is quite a trick, and swap dimension points, you're thoroughly in communication with the other person.

Two savage chieftains of the jungle walk over and swap spears. Man still dramatizes this ceremony. White man and Indian swap blood. You know, they're blooded brothers now. That means they're in communication, that means they can talk to each other.

And these tribes will get to war, or something like that, they look for somebody in their midst who has swapped anchor points with somebody else. And then these people will hold a parley and powwow and decide whether or not there's going to be war or not. See? But these two people are likely to stay aside from the whole thing.

The Turtle Totem, I think, of the early Indians of North America — a clan, more or less — these people had swapped and held in common, actually, a bunch of dimension points.

And when the tribes became mad at each other, or something like that, it was nothing for one member of the Turtle Totem to discover he was facing another member of the Turtle Totem on the battlefield and simply skip it, see. Both of them just break off and quit the whole deal. I mean, they just didn't fight, that's all. It was an agreement. And in that way, tribes would stay in communication with each other. Otherwise, communication would have ceased entirely.

And thus it is with two thetans. Unless they keep their anchor points swapped around and there's some evenness of gift either way, why, communication has a tendency to become lopsided and upset. Thus, if you gave all, and somebody else gave nothing, he would finally be sitting in your space. That might be upsetting to you.

You know these fellows who go around and they've got this walking image of Papa or Mama, or somebody, around? Well, that's what he's done: given-given-given-given, not received, you see. And he finally has an image of them in his space — curious manifestation you'll run into many times.

"Give me some people who are not present" is a phrase which brings this out immediately.

Well, the manifestation is he's put too many anchor points out to these people and received too few in return. So he is not able to interchange and communicate with these people.

You'll find out that although he has this person in his space, he does not now believe he can communicate with this person. See, this person never put communication points out, or dimension points out so that he could inter-change with them. You get how this picture is?

Now, this is how a number of individuals could come together and form a mutual-space universe.

8. And thus there is light.

Now, the actuality is that energy points — that is, dimension points — emanating consistently and continually, of course would produce light, wouldn't they? Dimension points would produce lights. They'd be invisible if they didn't produce light.

So when somebody has his anchor points very black, he's an unhappy person. You know, he really hasn't got an anchor point. It's black. It isn't producing any light, therefore it can't be noticed.

9. And thus there is energy.

Now, the interchange between these anchor points gives us flows of light. And this is what we call energy: those particles in transmission between terminals. The basic terminal is an anchor point. And energy is simply the emanation which interchanges between two or more of these anchor points.

10. And thus there is life.

Now, one word of explanation here. Life has been, up to a very short time ago, interpreted in Scientology and Dianetics as life form. In the Axioms of Dianetics, it is even given a symbol, lambda. It is the combination between theta and MEST. It is phenomena, and it is a special phenomena — life. Thus there is life form.

11. But there are other viewpoints and these viewpoints outthrust points to view. And there comes about an interchange amongst viewpoints, but the interchange is never otherwise than in terms of exchanging dimension points.

That's all you ever do. That's all anybody ever does.

12. The dimension point can be moved by the viewpoint, for the view-point, in addition to creative ability and consideration, possesses volition and potential independence of action; and the viewpoint, viewing dimension points, can change in relation to its own or other dimension points or viewpoints. Thus comes about all the fundamentals there are to motion.

Newton's laws of motion are inherent in such things.

13. The dimension points are, each and every one, whether large or small, solid. (They're all solid.) And they are solid solely because the view-points say they are solid.

14. Many dimension points combine into larger gases, fluids or solids. Thus there is matter. But the most valued point is admiration, and admiration is so strong, its absence alone permits persistence.

"That which is not admired persists." Also, another one, by the way, "That in which no one is interested persists." That's a real cute one. "That in which no one is interested persists." "That which is not admired persists." And you understand that a gas is made up of solids. A gas is composed of solid particles. A fluid is composed of solid particles. What you're talking about, when you're talking about a gas or a fluid, is a flow phenomenon. It is not-quite-matter that flows. It's a gradient scale.

15. The dimension point can be different from other dimension points and thus can possess an individual quality. And many dimension points can possess a similar quality, and others can possess a similar quality unto them-selves. Thus comes about the quality of classes of matter.

Mendeleev's Chart of Elements.

16. The viewpoint can combine dimension points into forms and the forms can be simple or complex and can be at different distances from the viewpoints. And so there can be combinations of form. And the forms are capable of motion, and the viewpoints are capable of motion, and so there can be motion of forms.

17. And the opinion of the viewpoint regulates the consideration of the forms, their stillness or their motion, and these considerations consist of assignment of beauty or ugliness to the forms. (Good or evil — same thing.) And these considerations alone are art.

The consideration is art, not the form! And if you ever believe otherwise, you're lost as an artist. You get that? The form is not important. It's the consideration of the form, see.

There's actually nothing there but a consideration of form — so that some little kid comes along and he makes a mud image, and so forth, and he tells you that this is beautiful. You are liable to look at it and almost trip over it, or something like that, and say, "I don't want to look at that thing." And this kid looks at you, very astonished, and he says, "Why, that's beautiful. What's the matter with you? Don't you see that very clearly? This is so-and-so and so-and-so. So-and-so." You look at it again, believe me. And this time you're liable to see what he is looking at, and later on, an entire primitive school of art arises where anybody can make a mudpie, and there's a whole school there that'll say it's beautiful.

It's consideration. So if you're ever befuddled as to what is artistic, just remember that it's the consideration that makes it so or not so, as the case may be. Don't ever get upset by anybody's artistic opinion. You have just as much right to an artistic opinion as anybody else.

Simplicity communicates best, and so therefore, you're liable to have a better opinion of simplicity than you are of complexity. But, sometimes people get complicated and they get a better opinion of complexity than simplicity. So no law can even be drawn there.

There's no law in art. There is no law of any kind. It's simply a consideration.

18. It is the opinions of the viewpoint that some of these forms should endure. Thus there is survival.

Now, survival can occur simply because you want something to endure, or because it wasn't admired. See, there's two kinds of survival.

The kind you fight, in Dianetics and Scientology, is the unadmired endurance — something enduring, apparently without intention. And that's outrageous, see, so you don't like that; so you process it.

19. And the viewpoint can never perish; but the form can perish.

You want to talk about past lives, you want to talk about endless phenomena. All these phenomena of life forms, animals, vegetable, mineral and all the rest of it would simply stem from line nineteen of The Factors. That is to say, The viewpoint can never perish; but the form can perish.

20. And the many viewpoints, interacting, become dependent upon one another's forms and do not choose to distinguish completely the ownership of dimension points, and so comes about a dependency upon the dimension points and upon the other viewpoints.

An agreement, a dependency — what's really the difference?

21. From this comes a consistency of viewpoint of the interaction of dimension points and this, regulated, is TIME.

A lot of viewpoints agree upon the uniform motion of a bunch of particles and you've got time there. You've got a timespan in common to every universe. It is the rate of change of position of particles in space for that universe — and that is time.

22. And there are universes.

23. The universes, then, are three in number: the universe created by one viewpoint, the universe created by every other viewpoint, the universe created by the mutual action of viewpoints, which is agreed to be upheld — the physical universe.

In this particular case, it is the physical universe. There's your universe, the other fellow's universe and the universe which is common to both of you.

24. And the viewpoints are never seen. (An interesting fact. Therefore, the only real effect that can ever be made is to change somebody's ideas.) And the viewpoints consider more and more that the dimension points are valuable. And the viewpoints try to become the anchor points and forget that they can create more points and space and forms. And thus comes about scar-city. And the dimension points can perish, and so the viewpoints assume that they, too, can perish.

25. Thus comes about death.

26. The manifestations of pleasure and pain, of thought, emotion and effort, of thinking, of sensation, of affinity, reality, communication, of behavior and being are thus derived and the riddles of our universe are apparently contained and answered herein.

27. There is beingness, but man believes there is only becomingness.

28. The resolution of any problem posed hereby is the establishment of viewpoints and dimension points, the betterment of condition and concourse amongst dimension points, and, thereby, viewpoints, and the remedy of abundance or scarcity in all things, pleasant or ugly, by the rehabilitation of the ability of the viewpoint to assume points of view and create and uncreate, neglect, start, change and stop dimension points of any kind, at the determinism of the viewpoint. Certainty in all three universes must be regained, for certainty, not data, is knowledge.

29. In the opinion of the viewpoint, any beingness, any thing, is better than no thing, any effect is better than no effect, any universe better than no universe, any particle better than no particle, but the particle of admiration is best of all.

30. And above all these things there might be speculation only. And below these things there is the playing of the game. But these things which are writ-ten here, man can experience and know.

Quite important, you can experience and know these things. That's what makes The Factors, now.

And some may care to teach these things, and some may care to use them to assist those in distress, and some may desire to employ them to make individuals and organizations more able, and so give to earth a culture of which we can be proud.

That is The Factors.

The amount of data in The Factors is not measurable, simply because you are looking at the data in The Factors when you walk down the street. It is not because The Factors were written that the data exists. But it is simply a backtrack and an inspection of the basic common denominators which give us the anatomy of what we call universe, and what we call life forms.

Now, you're expected to know all of that, so I will ask you to get ahold of a copy of The Factors, and read them again, and look them over until you've got a fair grip on them.

Okay.