THE EVOLUTION

OF A SCIENCE

BY L. RON HUBBARD
A fact article of genuine im-

portance. See the Editor's Page.

Illustrated by Miller

INTRODUCTION
The editor asked me to \Vrite this introduction to one of the most itnportant articles ever to be published in Astounding
SCIENCE FICTION, for some very
good reasons. First, he 'Wanted to make
certain that you readers would not confuse Dianetics with thiotimoline or with
any other bit of scientific spoofing. This
is too important to be misinterpreted. Second, he wanted to den1onstrate that the
medical profession-or at least part of itwas not pnly aware of the science of
Dianetics, but had tested its tenets and
techniques~ and wa~ willing to admit that
there was son1ething to it.
There is something to it; there is so
much to it, in fact, . that its potentialities
cannot yet be fully comprehended. Those
of us who have worked \Vith Dianeticsand that includes the Editor-have seen
what it can do, and are convinced of its
tremendous importance. I an1 not going
to try to persuade you of its .importance to
you personally and to th~ human race; you
must detern1ine that for.
yourself. But
.
while you are exercising your judicious,
;

DIANETICS

scientific skepticism, let me give you another point to consider in the meantime.
Dianetics is, in addition to all its other
attributes, a thrilling adventure. Ron
Hubbard, long a member of the Explorers
Club, has gone exploring .in the most obscure terra incognita -of all-the human
mind. He has explored a r egion wherein
lies the mightiest power in the known
Universe.
The tnightiest power known in the Universe today is not the atomic bomb; that
povver was discovered, developed a.nd controlled by th~ greater power of human
thought. And human thought-our most
intitnate possession-has been the least
known of all powers. Hubbard, in undertaking this research, undertook the greatest adventure any man can imagine-a
stranger and more fantastic experience
than any visit to the cities of the Arabian
Nights. To under~tand the human mind,
he had to find a path into the seat of madness, find a \Vay through that zone of distortion of thought-and on the other side
he found the most marvelous mechanism
imaginable. He found a computing machine, whose functional capacities tran-

43

scend those of any yet created by human

efforts. It is a machine incapable of error,
\Vorking with memory storage banks of
infinite capacity and incredibly detailed
exactitude.
.
And Hubbard's discovery of the true
nature of this wonderful device, the Hu-=
man Mind, gives us answers \Ve have never
had before. They are engineering answers, developed not QY metaphysical
\vord-juggling, but by the engineer's approach to a speci fie, defined
problem.
They
.
..
contradict many of the basic tenets of
modern psychotherapeutic theory, and
tnanhandle many of the principles of psychology.
1fodern psychiatry holds that predisposition to insanity is heritable, and that
there is no cure for several forms of insanity-they can only be treated by surgical1y excising a portion of the brain in a
prefrontal lobotomy, or-this is an actual
and literal description of the operation
known as a transorbital leukotomy-by
electro-shocking a patient unconscious and
running an ice-picklike instrument into the
brain by thrusting it through the eyesoc~et back of the eyeball, and slashing the
brain \vith it.

.
Dianetics denies this thesis. .Insanity is
not due to heritab-1e factors-but it is" contagious. And any insanity not based on
actual organic. destruction of the brain
can be cured, to regain a more-than-normal mental stability and clarity! Dianetics
offer-s hope where psychiatry can only be
gloomy.
Dianetics substantiates a long-felt intuit](,n that neurosurgery is not necessarily
the best thing for the human race. A good
many of us doctors have felt that the practice_of subtotal euthanasia by destruction
of the neural pathways to the prefrontal
lobes was a medieval treatment. And yet it
\vas the apparent lesser of two evils. Dianetics relegates surgical mutilation of the
mind to the same level as blood-letting
and blistering. _
One final note: the following article \vill
1tol supply you with sufficient information
to make you a dianetic operato.r. That

44

information will be given in a book being

published by Hermitage House.* In order
to practice any scientific technique . $UC.:-cessfully you must know more about it
than can be told in an article of this length.
Those of us who are interested in Dianetics want to be certain that, when it is used,
it is used proper,ly!
To sun1 up: ..J sincerely feel that Ron
Hubbard has discovered the key which
for the first time pern1its a true evaluation
of the hurnati mind and its function in
health and iti illness-the greatest advance
in n1ental therapy since man began to
probe into his mental n1akeup. 1\tforeover
he has contributed to the \velfare of the
race by deciding to give freely of the
kno\vledge \rvhich took fifteen arduous
years of study and research to acquire.
There are many \rvho would be tetnpted to
keep this know ledge secret and thereby
capitalize on it-but therein lies one of
the beauties of Dianetics. A ''clear" cannot help but pe altruistic, especially \vhen
that altruistn helps him better to survive.
In this present civilization .of ours,
where our techniques of destruction dangerously exceed our _abilities to survive,
there have been many thinkers engaged in
a frantic search for a method to control
Man's race-homicidal, race-suicidal tendencies. I feel certain that Dianetics is the
answer-if you; use it and know what you
are doing.
] OSEPH A. WINTER, M.D.

The optimum computing n1achine

is a subject which many of us . have
studied. If you were building one,
how would you design it?
First, the machine should be able
to con1pute with perfect accuracy on
any problem in the Universe and
produce answers which \vere always
and invariably right.
Second, the computer would .have
to -be swift, working n1uch n1ore

--*Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

-Manual of Dionetic Therapy-Hermitage House,
One Madison Ave., New York City. $3.00.
'

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

quickly than the problem and process

could be vocally articulated.
Third, the computer would have
be able. to handle large numbers
of variables and large ntunbers of
problen1s simultaneously.
Fourth, the computer would have
to he able to evaluate its OV\711 data
and there \vould have to retnain
available within it not only a record
of its former conclusions hut the
evaluations
leading
to
those
conclu.
stons.
Fifth, the computer would have to
be served by a memory bank of nearly infinite capacity in which. it could
store observational data, tentative
conclusions which might serve future
computations and the data in the
bank \vould have to be available to
the analytical portion . of the cotnputer in the ~mallest fractions of
second.

Sixth, the computer would have

to be able to rearrc:nge former con~
elusions or alter them in the light of .

new expertence.
.
Seventh, the computer would not
need an exterior program director
but would be entirely self-detern1ined
about its programming guided only
by the necessity-value of the solution
.
which it itself would determine.
Eighth, the con1puter should be
self-servicing and self-arn1ing against
present and fu,ure damage and
would be able to estimate future
damage.
Ninth, the computer should be
served by perception by which it
could determine necessity-value. The
equipment should inclpde means of

to

DIANETICS

contacting all desirable characteristi~

in the finite world .. This \\rould mean
color-visio, tone-audio, odor, tactile
and self perceptions-for without the
last it could not properly service itself.
Tenth, the n1emory bank should
store perceptions as perceived, consecutive vvith tin1e received with the
sn1allest possible tin1e di~Visions between perceptions. It would then
store in color-visio (moving), . toneaudio ( flo\ving), odor, tactile and self
sensation, all of them .cross-co-ordinated.
. Eleventh, for the purposes of solutions, it would have to be able to
create ne'v situations and imagine
ne\:v perceptions hitheao not perceived and should be able to conceive these to itself in terms of toneaudio, color-visio, .odor; tactile and
self sensation and should be able to
file anything so .conceived as im~gined labeled n1einories.
Twelfth, its n1en1ory banks should
not exhaust on inspection but should
furnish to the central perceptor of
the con1puter, without distortion,
perfect copies of everything and anything in the . banks in color-audio,
tone-visio, odor, tactile and organic

sensat1ons.
Thirteenth, the entire machine
should be portable.
There are other desirable characteristics but those listed above will
do for the moment.
It n1ight be somewhat astonishing,
at first, to conceive of such a computer. But the fact is, the machine
is in existence. There are about two

45

the optin1un1 brain. The optimut~1

brain, aside from the fact that it is'
not ahvays capable. of. ~olving every
proble1n in the Universe, basically..
\YOf.ks exact Iy like that. It sl)ould
h~ve\,color-visio (in motion), ton~
au.Qio,~'(Jlowing )., odor' 'tactile and
g?ni' i~V1ory recall. And .it sh<;>ul~
~,

'

"~,.

>

or.-

:,,~ ~'v, ~f~y~~i6 (in rq~ion\ , t+n~-

au_d~d-.\~~~~~:-~iir{ ~"il~, rtd\~r.-

gam~ . -,~l'Q.a~~i'Q& ' also recallable

after 1tn~~~~iiRe any ~t_!l~!!~e~lo.t:y~~-----'"ft~c tt shg)J,~~ ' b~;ao(e~o-,~;f

fereJl.ti~le b~twe"en<-~cttiality ~nd (ln1
agi!.iatio9r(jrirh. preci~~i(ht,/~d it

"'-..

shoui~ ~e" a9,Jtl t()l.r.ecaJ.\ at{y 'pe.r_cep

Jion,(>y.e~/ the~ trivial, ~,~re~ a

. . . ,..k Ni,.ff~ t .. h.,: ;. . }j
. "'....... ,~Jf~ .*,..,. . ~ Hl\.f .
a~-~ ./~ ~.- r._ot'tl. . t e 9!;,tt1t~g .
i
to
d~!b! .,!h~~t.:,!.~ thSv-optii\1un
n.
tnal: ./ antl niuic1t~'111l1Ch lnlo . ' It
sflo?ld:tH$~ with ~uch SW'i ftnes that
..,,.__

billion of. then1 in use today and

n1any, n1anj'h1ore billions have been
n1ade and used in the past.
In fact, you've got one. For we
are dealing with the hun1an n1ind.

c<

brf

-:

..

\.

v<tCa.!

'

'

;o

polJ.d erin

unab!.e>: . {o\~kee~

<<.'fx.., ... ,~~(::...v

The above is

I'

"

:<:

~.
.,,

..

ul
wtth .~,..,..,.
!l
t ou...

san ~~_.X
. ...
. 1putati~.
generalization of
And,
.

poiq{ anc;l)~.ducat!9.nal ata, 1 shotlld ~.e al1.u;;ys

.
'
~.
,..
' ri~ptr_~jts. ans\vers
1:.) \V~n
~-,..
~~~That _....ts~<the brat
.. ~ ~ tentialJy~~r~Jfh~t is the
,
can ~~~,.,,~fe~~pre~j~t9~' you un-less .you
hay..e~J;a(J./s6l}~~~~~ctforyfo ~ j t r~n1 oved.

, z

/ I( _..it"' does /r(dy!.d'(tlfs{,trii~gS, .li~

is

slightly..~out><St.atljustqi~h~t/
l
"
~~t ,! { f~ ~'
It.1~oo~. ~ tong ~i'n1eylto ~rrive at ltije
d3Ja th.a .t.:~this was arl opyfn1tthl braip.
the~.fJeginning ~~\Vas not realized
that / sotne people. h ad co.l or-visio-.
1119~-ing-recall, for instance, and ~hat
son1e did not. I had no idea that
.
1nany people in1agined, and knew
they were in1agining, in tone-audio,
et cetera,
~nd
. would
.have received
. .
.
.
.
.
/

,/.7

.ln
/

46

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

MllLEF\ 49

when questions had been for1nulated

.to be asked of the Universe at large,
there was no concept of the optimun1
brain. Attention was fixed upon the
normal brain. The normal brain was

. DIANElTICS

..

47

parable \Vith the nortnal n1ind._l\!Iinds

hecan1e , aberrated. vVhen restored
they would he nornl.al.
In fact,' in the beginning, it was
not even certain that n1inds could be
restored. All that was required was
an ans\ver to existence--and the reasons 111inds aberrated.
In a lifetin1e of wander~ng around
tnany strange things .h ad been observed. The tnedicine n1an of the
c;oldi people of 1\ilanchuria, the
shan1ans of North Borneo, Sioux
n1edicine men, the cttlts of Los
Angeles, and modern psych9logy.
Atnongst the people questioned abotit
existence \vere a magician vvhose
ancestors served in the court of
I(uhlai
Khan and a Ilindu who could
.
hypnotize cats. Dabbles. had been
tnade in n1ysticisn1, data had been
studied fron1 n1ythology to spiritualistn. Odds and 'ends-like these, countless odds and ends.

give up this nearly in1possible task

and begin postulating ottr .ovvn ansvvers?
\V ell, this is the story of how Dia~
netics \\~a~ built. 'fhis, at least, was
t!te approach rnade to the proiJlenl.
Dianetics \Vorks, which is vvhat an
engineer asks, and it woi-ks all the
titne, vvhich is \Vhat nature den1ands
of the engineer.
Jl'irst, atternpts \\~ere n1ade. to discover \vhat school or systei11 \vas
vvorkable. Freud did occasionally.
So did Chinese apuncture. So did
tuagic healing crystals in Australia
and tniracle shrines in South
An1erica.
Faith healing, voodoo,
narco-synthesis- And, understand
this. right here, no n1ystic tnutnbo
jun1bo need apply. An engineer has
to have things lie can 1neasure. Later
the word .. detnon" is used. 1'hat' s
because Socrates describes one so '
\vell. Dianetic use of it, like Clerkl\1ax\vell's, is descriptive slang. But
If yo'tt \vere constructing this sci- no \vild in1n1easurable guesses or
ence, \vhere vvould you have started? opinions vvere wanted. \Vhen an en-.
Here were all the various cults and gineer uses only those, bridges break,
creeds and practices of a whole vvorld buildings fall, dynan1os stop and a
to dra vv upon. Here were facts to a civilization goes lo vvrack.
A prirnary need, in arriving at a
.nun1be_r \Vhich makes 1021 binary
digits look sn1all. If you \vere called dynan1ic prit1ciple of existence, \vas
upon to construct
such
a science and to discover what one wanted to know
.
'
to cotne up with a \vorkable answer, about existence. One does not have
\\~hat \vould you have assun1ed, gone to dabl)le long with the gods to know
that they point unvaryingly if dito observe or con1puted?
Everybody and _everything s.een1ed vinely up a very blind alley~ . Ancl an
to have a scrap of the ansv;er ~ The engineering study of rr1ysticistn detn-
cults of all the. ages, of all th'e world onstrates that p1ysticisn1 ernbraces:
seen1, 'ea~h one, to contain,. a fragn1ent largely what it cannot hope to state
of the truth. How do \ve gather and precisely .
.assemble the f_ragments '? Or do vve
The first -propdsition \vent off
.

48

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

'

something on this order. Let us find variable in the equation if necessary.

out what we cannot consider or do
Now what do we have? Well,
not need to consider to get an an- we've been a little hard on demons
swer we can l)se. Some.. tests seemed and the human soul. These are
to den1onstrate that the exact identi- popular but they refuse to stand out
ty of the Prime Mover Unmoved and submit to a thorough inspection
was not necessary to the computa... and caliper mensuration and if they
tion. Man has been convinced for a won't so co-operrate, then neither
long time that He started this af- will we; And so two things come
fair, so no great gain could be made from this reduction of equation facin getting disputive about it. Let us tors necessary .t o solution. First,
then take a level immediately below existence is probably finite and secthe Prime Mover Unmoved.
ond,
finite
factors
alone
answered
-
Now let us see what else falls into the need of the problem.
the category of data unnecessary to
Probably we could be very obtuse
the computation. Well, we've studied a!ld mathematical here, but no mattelepathy, demons, the Indian rope ter. A good, workable heuristic
trick and the human soul and so far principle, a workable one, is worth
we have yet to fine! any cQnstants in an infinity of formulas based on Authis class of data. So let us draw a thority and opinions which do not
line below that as our highest level work.
of necessary information and now
All we can do is try ~he principle.
call this our highest line.
We need a dynamic principle of exWhat do we have left? We have istence. Vfe look in Spencer and we
the finite world, blue serge suits, find something which reads ~wfully
Salinas Valley, the Cathedral at good. It read good when he .took it
Rheims as a building and several de- from Indian writ1ngs, the same place
cayed empires and roast beef for din- Lucretius got it. But it only prener. We have left only what we can tends to be dynamic . because it
perceive with no higher level of ab- doesn't compute. We need a dystraction.
namic principle, not a description.
~ Now; how .do we perceive and on
But what does a principle mean in
what and with what? Ensues here a a sphere this large? And doesn't it
lot of time spent-1937-in comput- need a better definition? Let us then
ing out the brain as an electronic cal- call it a dynamic lowest common deculator with the probable mathe- nominator of exitsence.
Will such a lowest common dematics of its operation plus the impossibility of such a structure ca- nominator lead us straight up above
pable of doing such things. Let ~ts . the highest level we have set and
then rule out the necessity of know- . send us spit:tning off with a fist full
ing structure and. use this as an ()f variables and no answer? . It h~d
analogy only which can become a ~etter not:~ . So let u s pose some more
1

..
I

' 49 :.:

questions and see if they clarify the

principle.
\ .\That can we know? Can we
kno\V where life came fron1 ? Not
just nO\V. Can we kno\v where life
is going? Well, that would be interesting but few of us will live to see
that. So what can we know? vVho,
when, why, where, what-WHAT!
\Ve can know WHAT life is doing.
Let us postulate now that life
started son1ewhere and js going.
some\vhere. To know where it came
frotn might solve a lot of problems
but that seems unnecessary to know
at this time for this prohlen1. And
the sotnewhere might be kno\\~n too
sotne day but again we do not need
to know that. So now we have
something for the equation vvhich
\\'ill stay in terms of constants.
\VHA T is life doing enroute?
Life is energy of some sort. The
purpose seems to involve energy.
\iV e are being. heuristic. No argun1ents necessary because all we \vant
is son1ething with a high degree of
vvorkability, that's all any scientist
needs. If this won't work, we'll
dream up another one and postulate
and postulate until sotnething does
.work.
\\That is energy doing? It's surviving-changing
.f orm, but surviv.tng.

\Vhat is life doing? It's sur.

VlVtng.

Now maybe it is doing a whole

lot more, but we'll .just try this on

for .size. .What is the lowest com50

mon denominator of all existence

\vhich we have so. far found?

SURVIVE!
The only test of an organism is
survival.
That can be computed.
\V e can even go so far as to make
it colorful and say that there was a
beginning of track and at this beginning of track Somebody said SUR\ 1IVE! He didn't say 'Arhy and He
didn't sa v until. All He said was
~

SURVIVE!
V\1ell, that's simple and it computes. It makes sense on the slide
rule and it makes sense \vith a lot of
activity and it seems pretty goadLet's see.
The brain was a con1puter-director
evolved on the san1e principles and
on the san1e plan as cells and by cells
and is con1posed of cells. The brain
resolved problen1s relating to survival, asked itself questions about
survival, acted upon its own ..best concei~ed but personally vie,vpointed
plan for survival.

If one sagged down toward unsurvival, one ~as goaded up the scale
tovvard survival by pain. One was
lured ahead by pleasure into survival.
There . \vas a graduat~d scale with
one end in death and tne other in imn1ortality .
The brain thought in terms of differences, similarities and identities
and all its problems were resolved
on these lines and all these problen1s
and all these activities were strictly
and solely survival-n1otivated: The
basic cot)Jmand data on which the
body and brain operated was SURASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

..

,
S'

VIVE r That was all ; nothing 'fell

outside this.
It \Vas postulated to see if it
worked.
That was in 1938 after several
years of study. The axion1s began
with SURVIVE!. SURVIVE! was
the lowest common
denominator of
..
all existence.
They proceeded
, through axioms as to what n1an was
doing and how he was doing it.
Nice definitions for intelligence,
drive, happiness, good, ...evil and so
forth fell into line. Suicide, laughter, drunkenness and folly all fell inside this., too, as it computed out.
These computations stood the
tests of several years. And then, as
you may have heard, came a war.
But even \vars end. Research \vas
resutned, but now with the added
necessity of applying the knowledge
ga~ned to the problems of friends
who had not survived the \Var too
welf.
A researcher gets out on a tin1 of
the unknown just so far and the
guide books , run out. In the libraries were thousands and thousands of tnental cases, neatly recorded. And not one case contained
in it the essential data to 1~ts solution.
These cases n1ight just as well have
been written in vanishing ink for all
the good they were. Beyoud proving conclusively that people manifested strange mental aberrations
they were worthless. How do you
go about building a science of
thought \\rithout being permitted to
observe and without having any observed data?
v

Out of a multitude of personal observations in this and distant lands,

it was the first task to find a constant. I had studied hypnotism in
Asia. I knew hypnotism was, more
or less, a fundamental. Whenever
shamans, medicine men, exorcists or
even tnodern psychologists go to
work, they incline toward practices
which are hypnotic.
But of what use is such a terrible,
unpredictable variable as hypnotism.
On sotne people it works. On most
it doesn't. On those on whom it
vvorks it some~in1es achieves good
resul_ts, sometimes bad. Wild stuff,
hypnotistn.,
The physical scientist, however, is
not unacquainted with the use of a
wild variable. Such erratic things
usually hide real, important laws.
Hypnotism was a sort of constant
thread through all the cults-or hypnotic practices-but perhaps one
might at least look at it.
So hypnotism was examined. A
wild radicaL 'The reason it. was
\vild n1ight be a good answer. The
first inves.tigation of it was quite
brief. It did not need to be longer.
Examine a post-hypnotic suggestion.
Patient in an1nesia trance.
Tell hin1 that vvhen he awakens he
will ren1ove his left shoe and put it
on the n1antle. Then _tell him that
he will forget he has been tpld and
wake hin1 up. He awakens, blinks
for a while and then p\),tS his foot
forward
and ren1oves his shoe. Ask
him why. "My foot's too hot." .. He
puts the shoe on the n1antle. Why?
''I hate to put on a damp shoe.
.

, DIANETICS

51

synthesis so~etimes seemed to fix

a man up so .his war neurosis could
rise to even greater heights at some
future date. No, that is not entirely
fair. It _produced slightly higher results than a magic healing crystal
in the hands of an Australian medicine man. It seemed to do something
beyond what it was supposed to do
and that something beyond was bad.
H ere was another wild variable, a
piece of the puzzle of insanity's cause.
sanity were} somehow} 'identities. A We knew WHAT man was doing.
seaFch was begun for the reason why. He was surviving. Somehow, son1e
way, he occasionally became irraFor a long time and with many, tional. Where did hypnotism fit into
many people attempts were made to this? Why did drug hypnotism af
unlock the riddle. What caused hyp-, fect people so adversely at times?
n<;>tism? What did i it do ? Why did
These people one met and worked
with did seem. to be trapped someit behave unpredictably?
Examination was made of hypno- how by something which modern
touched. And
analysis. It sounds good in the texts n1ethods almost.,never
.
but it doesn't work. It doesn't work why did whole nations rise up to
for several reasons, first among them .slaughter nations? And \vhy did rebeing that you can't hypnotize every- ligious zealots carry a banner and
body. Further it works only occa- crescent across t~ree quarters of
sionallyt even when a person can be Europe? People behave as if they'd
hypnotized. So hypno-analysis was been cursed by something. '"'~re
buried along with the Water-cure of they basically evil? Was social trainBedlam and the pre-frontal lobotomy ing a thin veneer ?.Was the evil curse
and the demon-extraction techniques a natural inheritance from the tooth
of the shamans of British Guiana and claw animal kingdom? Was the
and . the search for the key which brain ever capable of ratiol)ality?
could restore a mind to normal was Hypnotism and narco-synthesis, un1 continued.
predictable radicals, refused for a :
time to divulge answers.
~ut hypnotism wouldn't stay quite
Out of orbit again and without
dead. Narco-synthesis seemed a good
lead, until orne cases were discov- tools with which to work, it was
ered which. had been "cured" by nec~ssary to hark back to the technarco-synthesis. They ~ were re. niques of the Kayan Shaman of
worked. with the technique just to Borneo, amongst .others. Their
discover what had occurred. Narco- theory is crude ; they exorcise deWarmer up here- and it will dry."
Keep this in mind, this experiment.
The full reasqn for its importance
did not appear for nine years. But
it was recognized that, with various
suggestions, one could create the ap- pearance of various neuroses, psychoses, compulsions and repressions
listed by the psychiatrist. The examination promptly went t:IO further.
One had too few answers yet. But
it was clear, that hypnotism and in-

52 .

. ASTOU.ND.ING
SCIE'NC E-:FICTION .
.
.

mons. All rigpt. We postulated that optin1um brain. That brain would
nlan is evil that the evil is native. be postulated, subject to change. It
Then we ought ~o be able to increase would be the combined best qu.a lithe civilized veneer by planting in ties of all brains studied. It would
hin1 more civilization, us.i ng hypno- be able to visualize in color and hear
tism. So the . patient u sually gets vvith all tones and sounds present,
worse. That . postulate didn't \Vork. all tnemories necessary to thought.
Provisional, let's try the postulate It would think without talking to itthat rr1an is good and follo\v its con- self, thinking in concepts . and conclusions. And we suppose son1e- clusions rather than words. It would
thing such as the Borneo Shan1an's be able to in1agine visually in color
Toh has entered into him which di- _anything it cared to imagine and hear
rects hin1 to do evil things.
,
anything it cared to in1agine it would
1\ian has beli-eved longer that d e- hear. It \Vas discovered eventually
n1ons inhabit n1en than tnan has be- that it could also in1agine smells and
lieved they did not. \V e assun1e de- tactiles but this did not enter into
nlons. 'vV e look for sotne demons, the original. :F inally it would know
one vvay or another. L~lnd we found \V_hen it was recalling and knqw when
it \vas in1agining.
sonte!
.
1'his was a discovery aln1ost as
Now, for purposes of analogy it
n1ad as son1e of the patients on ~and. was necessary to go back to the elecI

But the thing to do . was try to n1easure and classify den1ons.

Strange work. for an engineer and

n1athetnatician ! But it was found
that the ~den1ons '' could be classified.
There were several "den1ons" in
each patient, but there \Vere only a

classes of "den1ons." There

\vere audio den1ons, sub-audio d en1ons, visio-den1ons, interior denlo.n s, exterior den1ons, ordering d emons, directing den1ons, critical
de1nons, apathetic den1ons, angry
den1ons, bor.ed detnons and ''curtain" den1ons who merely occluded
things. The last seen1ed . the tnost
C0111111011. Looking jnto a few minds
established soon thaf it .\vas difficult
to find anyone ,vHo.'didn't have son1e
of these demons.

few

. It was) nece.s.sary to set up an

.

PIANETICS

tronic con1puter idea conceived in

1938. Circuits were drawn up for
the visio and audio recall, for color
and tone recall, for im~gination visio
and audio creation and color and
tone creation. Then were drawn the
lnen1ory bank ci~cuits. All this was
fairly easy a t this time since some
extensive work had been done on
this in the thirties.
\Vith this diagram, further circuits
vvere set up. The optin1um brain
was a plain circuit'. To this ~ere
added the "den1on" circuits. It was
found that by very ordinary electronics one could install every kind of a
"den1on" that had been observed.
The "detnons," since none of them
consented to present then1selves for
a proper examination as demons,
were, it was concluded, installed in
..

't .: .

53

the brain ~n the same way one would

install a new circuit in the optimum
brain. But as there. was just so much
brain, it was obvious that these electronic "'demons" were using parts of
the optimum brain and . that they
were no more competent than_. the
optimum brain inherently was. This
was more postulating. All one wantt~d was-' a good result. If this hadn't
\vorked .something else would have
been tried. ,
Thus the solution was entered
upon. While the human brain is a
shade too wonderful an instrument
to be classified with anything as
clumsy as contemporary electronics,
as marvelous as modern electronics
are, the . analogy stands. It stands as
an analogy. The whole science would
hang together .brightly now without
that analogy. But it .s erves in this
place.

.
There are no demons. No ghosts
and ghouls or:., Tohs. But there are
aberrative circuits. So it vvas rea~oned. It was a postulate. And the!'!
it became something more.
One day a .Patient fell asleep.
When awakened he was found to
he "somebody else." As "somebody
else" he was questioned very carefully. This patient, as "himself," had
a sonic memory block, an audio
n1emory block and was color-blind.
lie was very nervous ordinarily.
Just now, awakened into being
"somebody else" he was calm-. He
spoke in a lower voice tone. Here,
obviously, one was confronting one
of these electronic screw-ups the
54

savants call schizophrenics. But not

so. This was the basic p ersonality of
the patient himself, possessed of an
optimum brain!
It was very rapidly established
that he had color-visio recall on anything, . tone-audio recall, tone-audio
and color-visio imagination and entire co-ordinati"-ve control. He knew
when he was imagining and when he
was recalling and that, too, was
sotnething he had not been able to do
before.
He wanted to know son1ething.
He wanted to know when the operator was going to help him get himself squared around. He had a lot
of things to do. He wanted to .h elp
his wife out so she wouldn'l have to
support the family. How unlike the
patient of an hour before!
He obligingly. did some mental
computations with accuracy and
clarity and then he was permitted to
lie down and sleep: He woke up with
no recollection of what had hap...
pened. He had his old sympton1s.
Nothing c<?uld shake those electronic
blocks. He didn't even kno\v if he
had eaten lunch, the color of n1y
.. scarf and as for his wife, served her
right for being a condemned won1an.
This was a first introduction to
basic personality. It was a long vvay
from a last acquaintance. It was
found that it was possible to con..
tact optimum brain operation in a
number of people.
And the basic personalities contacted were invariably, strong, hardy
and constructively good ! They were
the same personalities as the patients
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE'- FICTIO:N

-h~d in a

normal ~state n1inus certain . wonderful in the way of ectoplasm?

mental powers, plus ~ electronic de-. Or did we part con1pany with tnany
mons and plus : general unhappiness. current beliefs and become someI found that a "hardened criminal'' thing a little more scientific?
With . an obvious
"criminal mind''
The source, then, must be the ex:.
. .
\vas, in basic .p.~rsonality, a sincere., terior world. A basic personality; so
intelligent being . with atnbition and anxious to be strong, probably
W')ulcl
not aberrate itself without
co-oper.ativen.ess~ :
..
This was . incredible. If this \Vas son1e very powerful internal per~
basic brain,. ,then . basic brain was sonal devil at work. -.. But with the
in
good. Then man was basically good. devils .and ''things that go boomp
.
Social nature was inherent! If this the n1ght" . heaved tnto the scrap
heap, what did we have left? There
\vas basic brainIt was. That . is a ''clear". But \\ras the exterior vvorld and only the
exterior world.
we pull ahead-' of t~e story.
Good enou.gh ; we'll see if this
People
uniforn1ly miserable
\Vorks again. Somehow the exterior
being aberrated. The most miserable
world gets interior. The individual
patient on the rolls had an aberrabecon1es possessed of $Orne untion that tnade her act "happy" and
kno\vns which set up circuits against
the n1ost nervous aberee one would
. his consent, the individual is aberever ... care to encounter had a tnasterrated, and is less able to survive .
ing aberration about being always
"calm". She said she was happy and
"fhe next hunt was for the untried to make he_rself and everyone
known factor. The track looked
believe it. He said he Was calm. He
pretty fair, so far, but the idea was
instantly flew i nto a nervous fit if
to forn1ulate a science of thought.
you told him J;le \Vasn't calm.
. And a science, at least to an enTentatively and cautiously a con- gineer, is something . pretty precise.
clusion vvas drawn that the optitnutn It has to be built on axioms to which
brain is the un~berrated brain, that there are precious few if any excepthe optitnum brain is also the basic tions. It has to produce predictable
personality, that the .basic personali- results uniformly and every time.
~ ty, unless organically deranged, was
Perhaps engineering sciences are
good. ~f man . were basically goo~; this way because natural obstacles
then onlv a '(black enchantn1ent
oppose the engineer, and n1atter has
cot~ld n1~ke . him
eviL
.
a rather unhandy way ~ of refusing to
\\That \vas the source qf this en- be overlooked because someone has
chantnlent?.
. ..
an opinion. If an engineer forms an
. .
. Did we adfi?.it. superstitions and opinion that trains can run in thin
den1ons a:s actualities . 'a nd. suppose air and so omits the construction of
the source \vas ~ sGn1ething -!Veird and a bridge across a stream, gravity is
~

were

:;:

DIANETICS ..

..

55

going to take over and spill one train

into one stream.
Thus, if we are to have a science
of thought, it is going to be necessary
to have workable axioms which, applied \vith techniques, will produce
uniform results in all cases and prqduce them invariably.

A great deal of compartmentation

of the problems had already been
done, as previously
mentioned or in
,
the course of work. This was necessary in order to examine the problem proper which was man in the
Universe.
First we divided what we could
probably ~hink about and had to
think about from what we probably
didn't have to think about, for pur-.
poses of our .solution. Next we had\
. to think about all men. Then a few
men. Finally t he individual man
and a:t last a portion of the aberrative
pattern of an individual man.
How did the exterior world become an interior aberration?
There were many false starts and
blind passages just as there had been
in detern1ining what an optimun1
brain would be. There were still so
many variables and possible erroneous combinations in the computation
that it looked like something out of
Kant. But there is no argument
with results. There is-no substitute
for a bridge heavy enough to hold a

tratn.
_I tried, on the off-chance that they
might be right, several schools of
psychology:- Jung, .Adler.
E ven
Freud. But not very serio-u sly becaus.e _Jver half the _patients on the

56 -

rolls had been g iven very extensive

courses in psycho-analysis by experts, with no great r esults. The
work of Pavlov was rev_iewed in case
there was son1ething there. But n1en
aren't dogs. -Looking back on these
people's -vvork now, a lot of . things
they did n1ade sense. But reading
their work and using it when one did
not know, they didn't n1ake sense,
from which can be concluded that.
rear-view mirrors six feet wide tell
more to a man who is driving with
a peephole in front than he knew
when he was approaching an object.
Then came up another of a .multitude of the doctrines which had to be
originated to resolve this -vvork. J'he
selection of importances. One looks
at a sea of facts. Every drop in the
sea is like every other drop. Some
few of the drops are of vast importance. How to find one? How
to tell when it is important? A .lot
of prior art in the field of the mindand as far as I was concerned, all of
it-is like that. Ten thousand facts,
all and each with one apparent unit
importance- value. Now unerringly
select the right one. Yes, once one
has fottnd, by some other means, the
right one, .it is very sitnple to look
over the facts and pick out t~ proper
one and say, "See? There -it \vas air
the tin1e. Old Whoosis knew what he
was doing." But try it before you
kno\v ! It's a cinch Old \Vhoosis did
not know or he would have redtabbed the fact and thro\vn the others
a\vay. So, \vith this new doctrine of
the selection of importances, all data
not of personal testing or discovery
ASTOUNDING SCIEN C E-FICTION

was jettisoned.. I had been led up so an arbi~rary and if it is only an arbimany bli!ld alleys by unthorough ob- trary, the whol~ computa~ion goes
servation and careless work on the out. What \vas I doing that had inpart of forerunners in this business troduced an arbitrary? . Was there
that it was tin1e to decide that it was another "why; everybody kno\S
much, tnuch. easier to constr.~ct a that-" still in this c omputation?
It's hard to make your wits kick
whole pren1ise than .. it \ivas to go
needle-in-the-paystacking. It was a out things which have been accepted,
rather desperate turn of affairs when unquestioned, froh1 earliest childthis can1e about. Nothing was -vvork- hood, hard to suspect them . .Another
ing. I found I had imbibed, uncon- sea .of facts, and these in the tnemsciously, a lot of prior errors which ory bank of the computer trying to
\Vere itnpeding the project. There find them.
were literally hundreds of these There \vas an arbitrary. Who in"vvhy everybody . kno-vvs that-" troduced it I don't know but it was
which had no tnore foundation in probably about the third shan1an
experin1entatiori or observation than '":ho practiced shortly after the third
a Rotnan omen.
generation of talking men had begun
So it -vvas concluded that the ex- to talk.
l\1ind and body.
terior world got interior through
son1e process entirely unknown and
unsuspected. There \vas rnen1ory.
There's the pleasant little hooker.
Hovv 1nuch did we kno\ about n1en1- Take a good look at it. Mind AND
ory? Hovv n1any kinds of n1en1ory body. This is one of those things
n1ight there be? Ho\v tnany banks like a ghost. Son1ebody said they
was the nervous systen1 runnipg on? saw one. They don't recall just \vho
The problen1 was not 7J.Jhere they it \vas or \vhere but they're surewere. That was an off-track prob\i\Tho said . they were separate?
len1. The probletn vvas 7JJhat they vVhere's the evidence? Everybody
were.
who has measured a mind without
I dre\v up son1e fancy schetnatics, the. b<Dd y being present please ra ise
..
threw then1 away and dre\v son1e both his hands. Oh, yes, sure. I_n
n1ore. I drew up a genetic bank, a books. I'm talking to you but I'm
min1ic bank, a social bank, a scientific not there in the f00111 with you right
bank. 13 u t they were all vvrortg. no\V. So mind is naturally separate
They couldn't be located in a brain fron1 body. Only it isn't. A man's
as such.
body can leave footprints. Those
Then a terrible thought came. are products of the body. The prodThere \vas this doctrine of the selec- ucts of the mind can also be viewed
tion of in1portances. But there vvas -vvhen the body is not there, but the~e
another, earlier doctrine-the intro- are products of and the product of
duction of an arbitrary. Introduce the object is not the object .

DIANETICS

57

So let's consider them a unity.

Then the body remembers. It may
co-ordinate its activities in a mechanistn called the brain, but the fact is
that the brain is also part of the .
nervous system and the nervous system extends all through the body. If
you don't believe it, pinch yourself ..
Then wait ten minutes and go back
to the time you pinched yourself.
Time travel back. Pretend you are
all back there. You will . feel the
pinch; that's memory.
All right. If the body remembers
and if the mind and body are not
necessarily two . items, then what
n1emories would be the stt:"ongest?
Why, memories that have pain in
them, of course. And then what
memories would be the strongest?

58

Those \vhich vvould have the most

physical pain. But these are not
re<;:allable !
lVfaybe it's the wrong postulate,
maybe people are in fifty pieces not
just one, but let's try it on for size.
So I pinched a few patients and
made theni pretend they had n1oved
back to the moment of the pinch.
And it hurt them again. And one
young n1an, \vho cared a great deal
about science and not much about his
physical being volunteered for a nice,
heavy knockout.
And I took him back to it and he
recalled it.
Then came the idea that maybe
people remembered their operations.
And so a technique was invented
and the next thing I knew I had a .
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

me~or.y

of a nitrous oxide dental

operation laid wide open. and in recall, complete with pain ..
A great deal of experimentation
and observation disclosed the fact
that there were no moments of "unconsciousness". And . that was another misconception w hich had held
up man ' s progress.
''U nconsctousness
.
" . S on1e d ay t h e
wprd will either- be gone or have
. a new meaning because just now it
doesn't really mean ~ thing.
The unconscious mind is. .the mind
which is always conscious.
So
there is no "unconscious mind". And
there is no "unconsciousness".
This
m~de modern psychology look like
Tarawa after the n1arines had landed; for this is about as easy to prove
as the staten1ent that when an apple is held three feet in the air and
let fall, it drops, conditions being
normal.
It wa:s necessary, then, to redraw
all the circuit diagrams and to bring
forth some terminology which would
not be quite as erroneous as (>unconsciousness" and ''the unconscious
mind".
For handy purposes, in view of
the fact that I had got myself into
difficulties before -by using ,\vords
with accepted meanings, I turned
some adjectives into nouns,; scrambled a few syllables and tried to get
as far as possible from the focus of
infection: Authority. _By using old
terms, one interposes, .in _comn1unication, the necessity . of. explaiJ?-ing.
away an old. meaning before he can
.

DIANETICS

explain ~he new one. A whole. chain

of thought can get thoroughly jammed up in trying to explain. that
while this word meant - - - - it now
means----. Usually, in communications, one is not permitted to get.
beyond an effort to explain one does.
not mean - - - -

. N ovv there

i~

no reason here to go
Into an evolution of terms in Dianetics . .The cycle of the evolution is
not ye~ complete. And so I will .
place here tern1s. which were long
after\vards conceived. They are not
yet stet. But their definitions are not
quibbles : the order of definition is
clear in the order of apples are
apples.
. The in1portant thing is what. we
are defining. There were several
heuristic principles on which the
initial \vork .was based which were
"understood". One was. that the
human n1ind was capable of solving
son1e of the riddles of existence. At
this stage in the evolution of Dianetics, after "unconsciousness'.' had
been sn1oked out of the "why, every-body knows that-" class of information and labeled it for what it was,

an error, tt
was necessary to look
over son1e of the "understood" .postulates of 1938. And one of those
"everybody knows" postulates has
been that the human mind is not
capable of understanding t he workings o~ the human mind.
And "everybody. knew that" the
human mind was liable to err, that
it was stupid, and. was very eas.ily

59.

aberrated by such smaJl things as because papa loved mama and Jimmy
'\\~anted

to love mama too.

And "everybody knew that" the
workings of the hun1an n1ind were
enorn1ously complex; so inv9lved
t_hat a complete direct solution of
the problen1 was itnpossible. That, in
effect, the human mind was a Rube
Goldberg device built up of an enornlously unstable and delicately balanced pile of odd-shaped bits of
etnotion and experience, liable to col. lapse at any titne.
. Fron1 the engineering vie,~lpoint,
. that seen1s a little strange. Two billion years of . evolution, a billion
successive test n1odels, would tend to
produce a fairly streamlined, func. tional n1echanism. After that much
experience, anin1al life would be expected to produce a truly functional
n1echanisn1-and Rube ~ Goldberg's
devices are amusing becau~e they are
so insanely nonfunctional. It somehow doesn't seem probable that two
billion years of trial arid error developn1ent could wirid up \vith a
clumsy, con1plex, poorly balanced
mechanisn1 for survival-and that
jerry-built thing an absolute _master
of all other animal life !
Son1e of those ''everybody kno\VS
that-" postulates needed checkingand checking out of the computation.
First, everybody knows that "to
err is hun1an". And second every-'
body kno\vs that we are pawns in the
hairy grasp of some ogre who is and
always will be unkno\vn.

f)O

Only this didn't so.und like en- .

gineering to me. I'd listened to the ,
voodoo drun1s in Cap Haitien and :
the bullhorns in the lama temples
. of the W est~rn Hills. The people .
who beat those drums and blew those
horns were subj-ect to disease, starvation and terror. Looked like we .
had a ratio at \Vork here. The closer
a civilization-or a n1an-moved
to\vard adtnitting the .ability of the
hun1an n1ind to con1pute-the closer
the proposition was entered that
natural obstacles and chaos were sus ...
ceptible to orderly solution-the better he-or they-fared tn the business of living. And here ':ve were
back \vith our original postulate
again, SURVIVE! Now this computation \vould be warranted only if
it \Vorked.
But it \Vas a not un\varrantable
conclusion. I had had experience
no\v 'ith basic personct.lity. Basic
personality could compute like a well
greased Univac. It was constructive. It was rational. It was sane.
And so .w e entered upon the next
seven league boot stride in this evo-
lution. \Vhat was sanitv? It was
""
rationality. A man was sane in the
ratio that he could compute accurately, 1in1ited only by information a~d

vtewpotnt.
What was the optimum brain? It .
was an entirely rational br~in. Wha~
did one have to have to be entirely
rational? \Vhat would any electronic
con1puter have to have? All data
must be available for inspection. All
data it contained tnus t be derived
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

~from

its own computation or it must

be able to compute and check the

data it is fed. Tak.e any electronic
calculator ... no, on sec.o nd thought,
don't take them. They're not smart
enough to be on the same .Plane with
the mind because they are of a great-

ly sub order of magnitude. Very

well, let's take the mind itself~ the
optimum mind. Compare it to itse'lf.
When did man become sentient? It's
not absolutely necessary to the problem or these results to kno\v just
when or where man eegan to
THINK, but let's compare him to
his fellow mammals. What does he
have that the other mammals don't
have? What can he do that they
can't do? What does h.e have that
they have?

..

good. After all ._those millions of years of evolution, it should be-in

fact it s~ould, by this time, have
evolved a perfect computer, one that
didn't give wrong answers because
it couldn't make a mistake. We've
already developed electronic computing machines so designed, with
such built-in
self-checking circuits,
.
that they can~t by their very nature,
turn out a wrong answer. Those
machines stop themselves and sum. mon an operator if something goes
wrong so that the computer starts
producing a wrong answer. We know
how to make a machine that would
not only do that, but set up circuits
to find the error, and correct the
erring circuit. If men have figured
out ways to do that with a machine
already.

All it takes is the right question .

.What does he have that they have?
I had long since laid as-i de the idea
He does have something-and he has
something more than they have. Is that one could do this Job by dis ...
secting a neurone. Dead, _they don't
it the same order? More or less.
You never met a dog yet that talk. Now I had to lay aside the
idea
that
the
brain's
structural
could drive a car, or a rat that could
mechanism
could
even
be
guessed
do arithrpetic. But you have men
that couldn't drive a tat, and men at this stage. But working on the
heuristic
basis
of
what-works,
it
is
that cotddn't do much better with
n()t
necessary toknow how it is done ,
arithmetic than a rat. How did such
in. terms of physical mechanism if
men vary from the average?
we can show that it is done. It was
It s:e emed that the average man convenient to use electronic circuits
had a computer that was not only as analogs, \and the analogy of an
better, it was infinitely finer than electronic brain, because I knew the
any anin1al' s brain. vVhen son1ething terms of these things. The brain
happens to that computer, n1an is may or may not run on electric;
no longer MAN but a dog or a rat, rents ; what things can be measured
for purposes of comparison in n1en- in and around it by voltmeters are.
tal pbwer.
interesting. But electricity itself is
- Man's computer must be pretty measured indirectly today. Tern-~

cu.r-

DIANETICS

61

perature is measured by the coefficient of expansion caused hy

ten1perature. Encephelographs are
1 ~seful working around a brain but
l1at doesn't n1ean that the brain is
as clttnlsy and crude
a vacuum
tube rig. Thi~ was a necessary step
because if the problen1 were to be
solved one had to suppose that the
brain could be patched up and vvith

as

'

some method decidedly short of

surgery.
So here \\7as what I seemed to be
~orking \Vith : a COi)Jputing machine
that could work .fron1 data stored in
memory banks, and \Vas so designed
that the computer circ.uits the.m selves
were inherently incapable of misconlputation. The computer was
equipped with . sensirig devices-the
sensory organs-which enabled it to

con1pare its conclusions with the external world, and thus to use the
data of the external wor~d as part
of the checking feedback circuits.
If the derived an.s \\'ers did n ot match
the observed ~xternal world, since
the computing circuits were inherently incapable of producing a wrong
-cotnputation, . the. data .used . in the
problem n1ust itself be wrong. Thus,
a perfect, errorless con1puter can use
external world data to check the validity of and evaluate ifs ovvn data
input. Only if the cornputational
tnechanism is inheret)tly error-proof
would thi$ be possible. But n1en
have already figt~red
qui n1echanical.
.
ty sin1ple ways of ;tl)~king an errorproof computer~an.d . if . n1an . can
~gure ~tout .at_thi& stag~ _ of the gan1~,
.

62

..

...

t\vo billion years of

and would.*

~volution couL~

Hovv did the mind work? Well, to

solve this problem we did not have to
know. Dr. Shannon cotnmented a
few months ago that he had tried
every way he could thfnk of to con1pute .the n1aterial in the 1nen1ory
bank of the brain, and he had been
forced to conclude that the brain
could not retain more than three
months' worth of observations if it
recorded everything. . And dianetic
research reveals that everyithing is
recorded and retained. Dr. 1\fcCulloch of the University of Illinois
postulating the electronic brain last
year is said to have done some computation to the . . effect that if the
human brain cos{ a million dollars
to_ build, its vacuum tubes would
have to cost about 0.1 cent each,. that
the amount of power it 'vould consttnle wquld light New York City
and that it would take Niagara Falls

--*The

system of the error-proof computer is

easily unders-tood. Imagine a vacuum-tube computer circuit. If one tube foils to f*'ction properly, the computer will turn out wrong ans wers
every time that . tube. is . required jn . the computa~
tion circuit. But suppose we set up~ two identical
comp~ters; now if a vacuum tube faits, the two,
running the same problem in parallel, will get
different answers-whlch indicates at once that
there is a defect somewhere. This system is used
in present computers which, when the -differentanswer situation arises, summon the operator.
But if three computers simultaneously calculate in
parallel on each problem, it is possible to determine not only that a defect exists in one computer chain, but also to determine which contains
the defect, and what the correct answer is. Now
the defective unit can be located and replaced bv
the machine itself. No machines man has made
have that feature; it requires o triple unit, . and
units are too .expensive. But man's brain uses
'ome eighteen billion neurones; the brain con .afford to run all problems in triplicate, and must to
achieve an inherently error-free computer. Only
by having an error-free computer con the immense~y important fuf'ction of data-evaluating be
made possible.

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ASTOUNDING SCI.ENCE-FICTIO.N
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to cool it. To these competent ge~tle- work out, isn't of -.fnuch use at this.
men ,;ve deliver up the problems of time. And so the "analytical n1ind''
structure. To date Dianetics has not or the "'analyzer" is a computer and
violated anything actually known the. "I'; for our purposes. ~11. we
about stt\lcture. Indeed, by studious want is a good workable solut~on.
application of dia.netic principles, . The next thing we must consider
maybe the problem of structure can is what apparently makes man a
be better approached. But at a swoop, sentient being and that consideratio~
we have all this off our minds. We leads us into the conclusion that
art dealing with fu~ction and abi~ity possession of this analyzer raises
and the adjustment of that function man far above his fellow n1arnn1als.
to the end of obtaining maximum op- For as long as man is rational; he is
eration~ And we are deali!_lg with an superior. When that rationality reinherently perfect calculator.
, duces, so does his state of being. So
We are dealing with a calculator it can be postulated that it is this
which runs entirely on the principle analyzer which places the gap hethat it must be right and U1USt find tween a dog and a mart.
out why if it isn't right. Its code
Stndy of animals has long bee_
n
.might be stated as "And I pledge popular with experimental psycholoJnyself to be right first, last. and al... gists, but they must not be misways and to be nothing 1Jut rtght and evaluated. Pavlov's work was inter.never to' be, under any circun1 - esting; it proved dogs will be dogs~
stances, wrong/'
Now by light of these new observaN ow this is what you would_ ex- tions and '"deductions it proved more
pect of an organ d~dicated to co~- than Pavlov knew. It proved men
,puting a life and death matte: l~ke werenJt dogs. Must be ,an answer
survival. If you or 1 were building here somewhere. Let's see. I've
a calcu,ator, we'd build one that' trained a lot of dogs. I've also train...
would always give correct answers. ed a tot of kids. O~ce I had a theory
N-ow, if the calculator we built was that if you trained. a k id as. patiently
also itself, a personality, it would as you trained a dog, then you would
m. aintain that it was rig_ht as well.
an obed"ten:t. k..td . 'D"d
.h-ave
1 n 't work .
. HaVing obServed thi$ computer in Hrn-m-m. That's right. It didn't
its optimum state as the basic per- work. The more calmly and patiently
sonality, the conclusion was very far one tried to make that kid into a
from a rnere postulate. And so .we well-trained dog- "Come here" and
wilt call this computer the "analyt1cal
he'd
run
away-hm-111-m.
Must
be
mind''. We could sub-divide things
further and get complicated by say- , some difference between kids and
ing that there is an "l" as well as a dogs, Well, what do dogs have that
. computer, but this leads off in some -kids don't have. Mentally, probably
direction or other which, as things nothing. But what do kids have that'

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DIANET'ICS ;
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63

dogs don't have. A "good analytical

n1ind!
Let us then observe this human
analytical n1ind more closely. It "must
have a ,characteristic dissimilar to
anitnal tninds-minds jn lo\ver orders
of man1mals. \Ve postulate that this
characteristic must have. a .high sur . .
vival value; it is evidently so protninent and widespre~d an.d the an.alvzer~hm-m-n1.
.,

'fhe analyzer n1ust have some

quality which 111akes . it , a slightly
different thinking apparatus than
those ohserved in rats and dogs.
Not just sensitivity and . cotnplexity.
Must have something newer and better .. An other principle? \Vell, hardly
a \vhole principle but-
The rnore rational the n1ind, the
1nore sane the n1an. The less rational
the n1i nd, the closer man approaches
j n cot1dttct his cousins of the. n1ammalian fan1ily. vVbat n1akes the mind
irrational?
I set t1p a series of experiments,
using the basic personalities I could
contact above or below the level of

the aberrated personalities and in

these confirn1ed the clarity and optimtun performance of the b~sic con1puter. Son1e of these patients were
quite aberrated until they were in
an hypnotic amnesia tranceat which
time they could he freed :of operator
controL The. aberrations
were not
.
present. Stutter~rs diq pot stutter.
Harlots became m:or~L Arithri1etic
'vas easy. Color-vi$i~O, i,.ope7"au~io re
calL
Color-visio,
. .
.
. . tone-~u.diq irn~gina:

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64

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tion: Knowledge of what- was imagination and what wasn't.. 'The "detnons'' had got parked son1ewhere.
The circuits and filters causing aberration had been by-passed, to be
n1ore precisely technical and scientific.
N O\V let's postulate that the aberrative circuits have been son1ehow
introduced fron1 the external world
-covered that. ground pretty well,
pretty solid ground .
And here's art answer. The introduced by-pass circuits and filters
became the aberrations in son1e vvay
we did not yet understand . . And
what new con1plexion did this give
the analyzer?
Further resear~h tended to indicate that the answer n1ight be contained in the tern1 -""detern1inistn".
A careful inspection of this computation confirn1 observations. Nothing
was violated. Did it \VOrk?
Let's postulate this perfect computer. It is responsible. It has to be
responsible. It is r1:ght. It has to be
right . .\Vhat would n1ake it w~ong?.
Exterior cletertninisn1 beyond its capacity to reject. If it 'could. .~ot l~ick :

out a false datutn it cz:;ould have to

compute with it. Then, and only then~ .
\vould. the perfect compu~er get
\vrong answers. A perfect cotn"!'
puter had to be self-determin~d
within the lin1its of necessary efforts
to solve a problem.
No self~
determinism, bad computation.
The n1achine had to b.e in a large..
measure setf~deter1nined or it would \
not work. That was ...th~ conclusjon!
.

!'\

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.:,

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,:

"

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ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION
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Good or bad, did it lead to further . Where do we look for' the error? Is
it in the memory bank?
results?
The search for what was holding
It did . .
down 7 involved quite a littie bar~
When exterior determinism was work .and -speculation and guesses.
entered into a human being so as to Some more work had to be done
overbalance his self-determinism the on the eomputer-the analytical
correctness of his solutions fell off mind. And then came what seemed
rapidly. :
to be a bright thought. Supposing
Let's take any common adding we set up the whole computer as the
machine. We put into it the order demon. A demon that is always and
that all of its solutions must contain invariably right. Let's install one in
the ~gure 7. We hold. down 7 and a brain so that the computer can proput on the computer the problem of ject outsid~ the body and give the
6xl. The answer is wrong. But we body orders. Let's make the comstill hold down 7. To all intents and puter a circuit independent of the
purposes here, that machine is crazy. individu~l. .Well, hypnotism has
Why? Because it won't compute ac- some uses. Good tool for research
curately so long as 7 is held down~ sometimes even if it is a prime vil-Now we release 7 and put a very lain in aberration.
large problem on the machine and
Two things happened the .m oment
get a correct answer. The tnachine this was .done. The computer could
is no~ sane-rational. It giv~ correct direct th~ body as an ''exterior ena nswers. On an electronic computer tity" and draw on the memory banks
we short the 7 so it is always added at will fo~ anything. Seven was no
_in, no matter what keys are punche~. longer held down.
Naturally this was a . freak test,
Then we give the machine to a storekeeper. He tries to use it and throws one that could be set up only in an
it on the junk heap because it won't excellent hypnotic patient. And it
give correct answers and he doesn't ~could be installed only as a tempoknow anything about troubleshoot- rary thing.
ing electronics and cares less. All
This artificial demon knew everyhe wants is a correct total.
thing. The patient could hear him
Admitting the analytical mind when the patient was awake. The
computation, and admitting it only_ demon was gifted with perfect reso long as it works, where does it call. He directed the patient admir ..
.get a held-down 7-an enforced ably. He did computations. by movwrong datum?
ing the patient's hand-automatic
.Now a computer is not necessarily ~riting-and he did things the pa..
its memory bank. Memory banks can tient evidently could not do. But
be added and detached to a standard why could it? We .had artificially
computer .of. the electronic type.. split the analyz-er away from the
-. ~IANET~CS

65

aberrated patient, making a new bypass circuit which by-passed all the
aberrated circuits. This would have
been a wonderful solution if it had
not been for the fact that the patient
was soon a slave to the demon and
that the demon, after a while, began
to pick up aberrations dut of the
plentiful store the patient had. But
it served to test the memory banks.
Something must be wrong about
these banks. Everything else was in
good order. The banks contained
an in~nity of data which ~ppalled one
in its very completeness. So there
ensued a good, long search tq_ find
something awry in the banks. In
amnesia sleep or under narco-synthesis, the banks could be very thoroughly ransacked.
By automatic
writing, -speaking and clairvoyance
they. could be further tapped.
This was a mad sort of way to go
about things. ,,B ut once one started
to investigate ' n1emory banks, so
much data kept turning up that he
had to continue.
There's no place here for a recital
of everything that was found in the
htunan n1emory bank, its completeness, exactness and n1inuteness or its .
fantastically complicated, but very
smart cross-filing system. -But a

resume is necessary of . sotne high

points.
In the first place the banks contain a complete color-video record of
a person's whole life, no matter _the
"demon" circuits.. The last occlude
or falsify. They do not alter the
bank or the accuracy of the bank. A

66

"poor" memory means a curtained

n1en1ory, the memory being com
plete. Every perception observed in

a lifetinte is to be found in the banks.

All the perceptions. In good order.
Memories are filed by time.. They
have an age and emotional label, a
state-of-physical-being label and a
precise and exhaustive record of ev
_erything perceived by organic sensationt smell, taste, ta.ctile, audio and
visio perceptics plus the train of
thought of the aria!yzer of that '!no

ment.
There . is no inaccuracy in the
banks~ Inaccuracy can, of course,' be
caused by surgery or injury involv...
ing actually removed portions. El~c
tric shock and other psychiatric ef..
forts are equivocal. Pre-frontal lo
botomy is such certain and complete
mind-murder .that one cannot be
certain thereafter of anything in the
patient except zombiisn1.
Anyway, the memory banks are so
fantastically con1plete and in such
good order ~ehind the by-pass cir. .
cuits in any man not organically
tan1pered with, that I very rtearly
vvore out the rug trying to conceive
it. Very 'vell, there was sotnething
between the -banks and the analyzer.
l\t1 ust be. The banks were cotnplete.
The circuits were intact. In any patient organically sound--:-and that includes all patients who have psycho
. somatic ills-the basic personality
was apparently intact, the banks
were intact. But the banks and the
analyzer son1ehow did not track.
Well, let's take another look. This
is an engineering pr:oblem. So far
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION .

it has surrendered .beautifully to engineering thought and cotnputation.

Apparently it should go right on surrendering. But ~et's look at Freud.
There's his Censor. Let's see if
there's a censor bet\veen the banks
and the analyzer.
That folded up in about t\vo seconds N.[ex. The censor is a cornposite of by-pass circuits and is
about as natural and necessary to a
hunntn being as the fifth vvheel on a
n1onocycle. There isn't any censor.
Served tne right for trying_ to lean
on Authority! In tern1s of authority,
if yon can spell it it's right. In terrns
of engineering, if it can't be found
a1_
1d rneasured in son1e fashion, it's
probably absent.
I rechecked the n1ernory banks.
Ho\v \vas I withdravving data? I
was using auton1atic \vriting for
son1e, by-pass circuit for others, direct regression and revivification on
the old line Hindu principle for
others~ I _set about trying to classify
what kind. of data I \vas getting \vith
each tnethod of recall. All of a sudden the problen1 fell apart. I~y automatic \vriting I was getting data not
available to the analyzer. By bypass I was getting data not available
other\vise. By regression and revivif1cation material \vas being procured only a little better than could
be recalled by the tranced subject.
The data
I could check was found to
be invariably accurate by any of
these tnethods. vVhat vvas the differen~e betwe~n auton1atic vvriting
data and sin1ple trance data?
I took a patient's auton1atic data
DIANETICS .

and regressed hin1 to its period. He

could not recall it. The data concerned a broken leg and a hospital.
I bucked hin1 into the incident by
n1ain force.
The pati~nt received a very sharp
pain in the area of the old break.
This \VaS long \Vay fron1 hypoanalysis. This 'vas an effort to find
an interposition between n1ernory
banks a~nd analyzer, not an effort to
relieve .. traun1a:tic experiences".
And there was the answer. vVhv

not? Very sin1ple. It had been sitting right there staring at n1e since
1938. Oh, th~se six-foot wide rearvie\v tnirrors! I had even rnade a
la vv about it.
_T he function of the mind ineluded the avoidance of pain. ~ain
\vas unsurvival. A void it .
And that's it-the way to hold

dovvn seven ! You can hold it do\vn

\vith physical pain! The exterior
world enters _into the n1an ancl beccnnes n1en1ory bank. The analyzer
uses tnenlory bank. The analyzer
uses the exterior world. The analyzer is caught bet\veen yesterday's
exte-rior vvorld now interior and today and tomorrovv's exterior \Vorld,
stilt exterior.

Can it just be that this analyzer

gets its data on ot1e perceptic cir. cuit. -Can it be that that perceptic
circuit carries yesterday and today
both? \Veil, however that may be,
_the analyzer certainly beh~ves to yesterday's interior vvorld the san1e vvay
it behaves to today's exterior world
so far as the avoidance of pain goes.
The law works both \vays.

AST-3U

67

The analyzer avoids yesterday,s scions" periods were rather like pepain as well as today' s pain. Well, . riods of hypnosis driven hon1e by
that's reasonable. If you avoid yes- pain. Th.e patient tesponded as
terday's pain in today's environment, though the "unconscious period" had
you have a tnuch better chance to been post-hypnotic suggestion!
survive. In fact- But see here,
From this series of experiments a
there's more to the problem than this~ prime datum was picked up. You
If the analyzer had a clear vie'\V of relieve the pain and the "unconyesterday' s pain it could better avoid sciottsness" and the suggestive pow...
it in today. 'Phat would be good e.r goes away. .T he subject did not
operation.
have to have any of the mutnbo
.Th~t was the "flaw" in the rnajumbo of hypnosis in this "unco~
chine. But it was a highly neces- scious period". But every perceptic
sary "fla'\v." Just because an or- perceived tended t~ aberrate hin1.
ganism is built to survive, molded to
I did not realize untii then that I
survive and intended to survive does . was playing tag with a hitherto ttnnot mean that it will, as a matter of appreciated mid-evolution step . in
course, be perfect.
.m an. If he \Vas once a poly-wog, he
But the analyzer was perfect.
had never lost any of the, parts he
The b~nks were perfect.
had evoluted through. Hovv does a
The analyzer just plain wouldn't . fish think?
ever let the irrationalities of exterior
Well, let's see how a fish vvould
_world inside as long as it could help respond to pain. He is svvin1n1ing in
it.
brackish water of yellow color over
As long as it could help it!
a green bottom, tasting shrimp. A
big fish hits him a whack, misses but
I was probing now for the villain does not kill him. Our fish lives to
of the piece. He was not found for come back another day. This time
a while. Many experiments _were he switns into an area of brackish
made. Efforts were made to make water with a black .botton1. He gets
several patients well by simply a little nervous. Then the water bebreakit?g through the pain wall the comes a yellow color-. 1"he fish be..
analyzer was "seeking to avoid". A comes very, very alert. He coasts
lof of painful incidents were broken,_ along and gets over a green bottom.
mental and physical anguish by the Then he tastes shrimp and instantly
library full, and without much relief. swjms a\vay at a terrific rate.
The patients__, relapsed.
Now, what if inan still had his
Then it was discovered that when lower organism respon_ses? Well, it
a patient was bucked through a pe- seemed, on experiment, that he did.
riod when he was "unconscious," he Drug him with ether and h~rt him.
showed some improvement. Then Then give him a whiff of ether and
it was discovered that these "uncon- he gets nervous. Start to put him
68

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

out and he begins to fight. Other

experitnents all gave the same con-

lyzer for an instant during the shock?

The analyzer goes out of circuit and
leaves a n1echanical determining diclusion.
Lo\ver organisms can be precisely rector in full charge ! A good, fast
and predictably determined in their identity-thinking director.
The analyzer does not think in
responses. Pavlov's dogs. Any dog
you ever trained. The dog n1ay identities. It th.inks in differences,
When it loses its
ha v.e son1ething of an analyzer too, sitnilarities.
but he is a pushbutton animal. And power to differentiate and thinks in
so is n1an. Ah, yes, so is n1an. Y ott identities- No, it never does that.
That's n1adness and the analyzer
knovv, just like rats.
Onlv
does not go 111ad. But something
.., n1an isn)t! Man has a vvide
po\ver of choice. Interfere with that around here thinks in identities.
wide po,ver and there's trouble brew- Start working on a patient and find
ing. Aberrate hin1 enough and he's out that hash equals snow equals an
unpredictably pushbuttonable. Cut ache in the knee- That's identity
his brain out with a knife-and he thinking.
can be trained to speak vvoof-vvoof
\ e don't know here \vhat really
for his. food. But by golly, you bet- happens to that analyzer. But we
ter cut pretty vvell to get a good, do kriovv that \Ve have found somesatisfactory one hundred percent of thing \vhich interposes between the
the tin1e woof-vvoof!
banks and the con1puter. Something
\\That happens when a n1an gets \vhich thinks in identities, has a high
"knocked out"? He, "isn't there". priority over reason during moments
But all the tnen-tory recordings dur- of stress, can b~ found \Vhenever a
ing th e period are. vVhat happens n1an is sent into son1e of yesterday's
when you knock hitn half out? H;e unconscious n1on1ents.
\Ve 'know \vhat it' does now. It
does strange, automatic . things.
What happens vvhen his analyzer is takes cotntnand when the analyzer is
so aberrated that . . . hev ! '"'ait ! out of circuit. Whether or not it is
"'
How would you build a good, sensi- the old style .ni.ind vvhich n1an did not
.tive analyzer? Would you leave it shed \Vhile graduating to sentience
connected to every shock? II uhuh ! by developing an analyzer is beside
You'd fuse it so it \vould live to the point. .'\Vhether or not it is a
think another day. In an emergency structural entity of a cotnbination .of
what kind of a response do you want. "unconscious periods" is equally. out- .
Autotnatic !
side our concern here. We are
Stove hot, hand on stove, Vvith- working in function and we want
draw hand. Do you do a computa- answers that -vvork every time.
tion on that? No indeed. vVhat
Call this the reactive mind. It. is a
withdrevv the hand? The analyzer? n1ind \vhich is constructed to work
No. What happened to the ana- in n1,.on1ents of enorn1ous physical
I

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orANETICS

69

pain. It is rugged . . It works all the memory bank and its total co~tent,
way down to the bottom and withi.n the norns and their locks. A norna millimeter of death. 1\1aybe it's Norse: a hidden witch \vhich guides
almost impossible to build a sharply man's fate all unknown to hin1-is
sentient mind which would opet:ate simply a period of physical pain
under the terrible conditions of \i\then the analyzer is out of circuit
agony in which we find the reactive and the organism experiences son1en1ind operating. Max_be the reactive thing it conceives to be or \v hich is
mind ... well, that's structure. Here contrary to its survival. A norn is
received only in the absence of the
it is as function.
The reactive mind thinks in iden- analytical power.
tities.
It is a stitnulus-response
When th~ analyzer is out of cirn1ind. Its actions are exteriorly de- cuit, data of high priority value can
tern1ined. It has no power of choiGe. pass, without evaluation by the anaIt puts physical pain data forward lyzer into the memory bank. There
ciuring moments of physical pain in it becon1es a part .of the en1ergency
a.n effort to save the organisrn. So bank. This is a red-tab hank, the
long as its mandates and con1mands reactive mind, composed of high
are obeyed it withholds the physical priority, dangerous situations vvhich
pai ~. As soon as the organismstarts the organism has experienced." The
to go against its comn1ands, it in- reactive ,mind has this bank as its
flicts the pain.
sole source of inforn1ation. The reThe fish, had he failed to S\vitn active tnind thinks in identities \vith
away when in a danger area 'vhere this red-tab bank. So long as the
he had been attacked \Vould have . analyzer is fully in circuit, the redheen for~ed a \\~ay by the -crude tab hank is nul and void. \Vith the
n1echanisn1 of pain going into re- analyzer partically out of circuit-as
stin1ulation. No ~win1 equals aching in \veariness, drunkenness, or illness
-a part of this bank can cut in.
side. Sv1t111 equals all right.
Let's begin to call "unconsc.ionsThe analyzer blovvs its fuses as
any good n1achine vvould vvhen its ness" a ne\v vvord : AN A TEN.
There is
delicate n1echanisn1 is about to be de- A n alytical attenuatio.n.
stroyed by overload. That's sur- great or .l esser anaten. A n1an goes
. vival.. The reactive mind kicks in under ether. He becon1es anaten.

\vhen the analyzer is out. That's l-Ie is hit in the j~w and is anaten.
survival.
But something 111t1st go \vrong.
N O\V \vhat does a norn contain?
This was a pretty good schen1e of Clinical exan1ination of . this object
things. But it didn't al\vays \vork. of interest den1onstrates that the
. Or it worked too vvell.
norn C<?nsists of anaten, tin1e, physiThus were discovered
the reactive cal age, en1otion, physical pain, and
..
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70

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

every percept in order of sequence. anaten, the norn is restimulated.

Words, . sights, , sniells; everything After this she has headaches when
that was there.
dogs bark or \vhen cars pass that
We had. to 9rganize a ne\v sub- sound like that car, but only rescience here. to think about norns spopds to norn when she is tired or
properly. It's the science of per- hara9sed otherwise. The norn was
ceptics. Kno\v your general se- first dorn1ant-data waiting just jn
mantics ? Well, same organization case. Next it was keyed-in-stuff
only we take in all the perceptics and \Ve have to \Vatch out for. Then it
we show \vhere the n1eaning of each \vas thereafter restimulated whenperceptic originates and vv hy n1an ever any C0111bination of .its percepcan't nonidentify with ease and . tics appeared while Mary was in
slight anaten (weary). When forty
aplon1b so long as he has norns.
The automatic \Vriting I . ..\vas get- years of age she responded in ex~ctly
ting \Vas straight out of norns. That the same \vay, and still has not the
and by-pass circuits vvould disclose slightest conscious understanding of
data received during anaten-norns. .the real reason !
Now let's consider ~hat would
And then I discovered that these
norns had a peculiar faculty. They have happened if Mary's n1ama had
cou1d create their own circuits, para- yelled something really choice, nornally speaking_: ''Be calm! Be caln1!
sitically using the host circuits.
Here's how a norn can be estab- Oh, my darling, it's always this way.
lish<:d: l\1ary, age 2, knocked out by Get out, get out !" Sotnething man1a
dog, dog bites. .Content of norn : ~ad tucked a\vay as the proper thing
ana ten _; age 2 (phy~ical structure) ; to do .and say, nornally, when dogs
srnell of environn1ent and clog ; sight bite daughters.
We here have what amounts to a
of dog jaws gaping and white teeth;
organic sensation of pain in back of post-hypnotic sugges.tion : identity
head (hit pa~en1ent) ; pain in pos- (equals) thought. All the percepterior; dog bite in cheek; tactile of tics equal all the "vords equals a dog
dog fur; concrete ( e1ho\vs on pave- equals man1a equals get out, etcetera,
n1en t) hot d?g breath ; en1otion ; et cetera, et cetera, and each equals
physical pain plus endocrine re- all and any part of each. No vvons ponse; audio: clog gro\vl and pass- der nobody could compute a mad
man~ This is irrationality de luxe.
tng car.
\t\That Mary does \vith norn: She Literally, this con1putation of idendoes not "ren1ember" the incident tity thought n1akes no sense. But
and it better be
but sonletftnes plays she. is a dog it's 'survival data

jun1ping en people and biting them. obeyed or the cheek will hurt, the
Otherwise no reaction. Then, at age head will ache and the elbows vvill
10, sitnilar circutnstarices, no great get a pern1anent "der1natitis".
<;. ,

DIANETICS

71

But remember that this norn also

had, as a tab, anaten, the exact de-

if improperly evaluated, in old philosophic schools or in modern practice, but there remain a fe\v entirely
new facets \vhich have no prior art.
This red-tab bank is a very special
affair and is quite different in con1position, content and circuit from
the analytical banks- conscious banks
containing data \vhich can be "re1nen1bered" .

gree of anaten present during that

moment. The analyzer is a fine device but it is also, evidently, a p~ysi
cal organ, probably the pre-frontal
lobes and organic sensation includes
several things. Restitnulation brings
about this state of affair$ : '' i\nalyzer
shut off." "Reactive n1incl to cells.
.Red-tab dog in sight. Shut off analyzer. This is a priority situation.
The reason this bank \Vas never
That is all.~'
discovered before is not clifficttlt to
The degree of anaten is very far find. The red-tab bank content vvas
fron1 t_!'Ie original in the norn. But in1planted \vhen the analyzer -vvas C?ttt
it is sufficient to produce a redtlced of circuit-unconscious. It is lostate of analyzing, in effect a reduced , cated then tnanv stratas helo\v cons
sanity. The subject just has a ~eel scions a \Vareness in the stupefactions
ing of dull, stupid n1ental confusion of a physical knock-out. vVhen one
n1any times, a sort of dun1b, itnrea- tried to get to it \vith hypnotisn1 or
soned and unidentified en1otion that narco-synthesis he was confronted
seems to s_top thought in nun1bness. \Vith a patient \vho sin1ply looked
You've had it! Thus \Ve have a knocked-out, vvho \Vas unresponsive
situation which b~gins to approach a to everything. As narco-synthesis
pushbutton detern1inisn1. The norn and hypnotisn1 both savor of sleep,
. \Vhich has becon1e keyed-in can, the deeper sleep of the composite "'
. when the inqividual is slightly anaten \Vhole of all the past knock-outs of a
-weary, ill, sleepy-be pushbuttoned. lifetin1e render the patient entirely
Use the key vvord to the slightly insensible even when one \vas squareanaten subject \vhich is contained in ly on top of the reactive hank. So
one of his norns and one of that this bank ren1ained hidden and unnor.n 's reactions n1ay be observed. known. And_that is a sad thing bePush the button thoroughly enough cause unless one knows about this
and a full dratnatization can be ef..: bank the entire problem of man's
fected-he will re-enact the original hnperfection, his insanity, his vvars,
situation !
his unhappiness, can go begging or
Thu~ th~ red-tab "1nernorv" bank
get into the files of a shan1an or a
Much 1nore vvidely,.
of the reactive n1ind. The discov- .neuro-surgeon.
.
.
. ery of this bank is one of the several the hidden character of this bank
original discoveries of dianetics. can be said to be responsible for irraMany parts of dianetics can be found, tional conduct on the part of all man.,/

.,/

72

.
SCIENCE-FICTION
.

AST.O UNDING

kind. And how n1any lives has that

cost in the last four thousand years ?
It is a very peculiar sort of a
bank. It is" the o-n ly bank in the human n1ind .frotn which anv content
"'
can be exhausted. All its content is
pain and unconsciousness. And only
physical pain can be deleted frcftn
the n1ind. Now wouldn't you say
that this vvas a peculiar sort of a
bank? H ere it is vvith its bunkers
full of high priority but false survival data. Here it is full of experiences \vhich, because of the vYay they
are filed, cari drive a tnan to suicide
or other madn~ss. I-I ere it is with its .
memories all ready to click into the
motor controls of the body ready, .
~ithout so much as a by-your-leave
from the. sentient analyzer, to make
a man run insanely until he drops
from heart failure. Here it is able to
change the perfect structure of the
body into a nightmare thing with a
fetuslike face and wasted or undevel. oped limbs. Here it is ready to
manufacture anything you can name
by way of physical ills or at least to
predispose them, possibly even cancer. Here .it is filling hospitals, mental institutions and jails. And yet it
is the one portion of human memory
that <;an be modified and changed !
What price some o the old
philosophies when the only reducible
,,
..
"memory" is one Qf pain?
- Try any technique
can name
on a pleasant or even a merely passing memory in one of the conscious
banks. It will stay right whe.r e it is,
indelible, particularly the pleasurable

you

..DIANETICS.

'\

73

ones.

But a "1nen1ory" in the red- springs into view, brilliant and clear,
tab hank, vvhen properly approached utunodified by the by-pass circuits
by dianetic technique, will vanish out \vhich are n1adness. Reduce the reof that bank entirely. It refiles as active bank and the optin1u1n rnind
a 111e1n0ry in the COllSCiOHS level for .the individual con1es into view.
hanks and as such, by the vva y, is The reactive bank \vas neither the fantastically difficult to locate-on the drive nor the pe~sonality of the indiorder of vvhat you ate for dinner on vidual-these are indelible and inJlltle 2nd when you \Vere tWO years herent.
of age-and vvhen fourid bears .the
And another thipg happens. The
tag "found to be nonsurvival data, do .by-pass circuits and the reactive hank
not perm!t it or sitnilar data into any apparently stand only betvveen the
fundan1ental con1putations".
-.J\nd conscious banks and the analyzer.
,,
. ,,
.
one of t h ese unconscious 1nen1or1es
'They do not stand bet\veen, for in\vhen treated, produces about the stance, the ear and the sonic file in
sanlP _emotional response after'vvards the conscious bank, the eye and the
as a tnildly an1using joke.
visio fi 1e, e.t cetera. This is a very
The red-tab bank could cause cir- ,important discovery in its O\vn right,
cuits to be set up which looked and for it n1eans that an aberration, for
sounded like detnons. It could oc- instance, ahont the inability to , hear
clude the conscious bank in part or did not prevent all proper sounds
so thoroughly that it appeared that fron1 being filed, about the inability
there was no past. It could con1- to see color did not prevent all color
n1and and order a person about like frotn being filed. Clear away the re a tnoron might control a rohot. And active circuit which .apparently preyet it is perishable. And it can be vented the observations and the anade-intensified and refiled, \vith conse- lyzer finds itself posse?sed of \vhole
quent great increase in the survival banks of tnaterial it never kne\v it .
chances of a man. All its content is had, all in proper sound and color
contra-survival. \Vhen it is gone, et a!.

survival is demonstrably enhanced- For instance a Jnan vvho supposes

ann that means, "rhat it says and the that the vvhole vvorld was ugly and
fact can be proven in a clinical lab- sordid is guided through therapy.
oratory with an experitnent on the The aberration vvhich n1ade the
vvorld seetn ugly and sordid fo1cls up
order of "is this water ?"
when the norn
- or norns to . that efPleasure memories can be attacked feet de-intensify and refile. The byvv-ith various techniques. But they pass circqit these norns caused to be
are set. They won't budge. Refile set up did not prevent a fu11, trite
the reactive memories and the whole recording to be n1ade via all sensory
conscious lifetime of the individual channels. Therefore, when the ana<..

'

74 .

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

lyzer is per1nitted, to enter the files,

the individual discovers t hat he has
innutnerahle pleasurable experiences
which, \Vhr n they occurred, appeared
to hitn to he ugly and sordid but
'Which are n6vv bright.
1' his post ulate ~ another circuntstance, interesting but not vital to
diatietics. The standard rnetnory
banks of the tnind are evidently not
filled \vith rnen1ories vvhich are enti ...
ties capable of vvilly-nilly detertninisrn on the individual. They are not
auton1atica1ly restin1ttlated by the
perception of son1ething \vhich sug-
gests then1 iu the environtnent. Th~y
are not hooked into circuit on a
pennanen t has is at all. They are
filed \vith conclusions and the analyzer n1ay pick up the old conclusions
or create n e\v ones which change the
old. In other vvorcls, the standard

ban!\., is at the co11t1nand of the analv:-:cr and the individ-ual the indi~idual is 1z ot a.t the co1111tz.and of the
sta ndard ha.nA\s.
In short there is no such thing as
conditioning. Conditioning is all
J.

on the subject does not and cannot

~x ist. Condit ioning can be ren1oved
a nd \vill stay retnoved. T here are
then t\vo things at vvork : The reactive rnind cotnn1ands certain actions and these can be altered by the
de-intensification of norns. The analyzer can hook up and arrange certain auton1atic responses for various
tnechanical situations and actions.
Call the reactive n1ind demand a
habit, call the analytical req.uiren1ent
a training pattern. There are habits :
these can Qe ren1oved. There are
t raining patterns : these can be altered onlv \Vith the consent of the
analyzer, vthich is to say, the indi- vidual. Practically a11 the survival
patterns which reaUy lead to survival are laid do,vn on the analytical
Jeve 1. The reactions in which people
~

,.

indulge \Vhich are contra-survival

are laid do\vn on the reactive level.
Conditioning, therefore, is another
tertn vvhich can be laid aside. The
analyzer, vvorking without impedence by norns, can lay down or take
up training patterns at ,vill. The
active mind can lay down commands
'vhic.h m~ke habits only vvhen the exterior world implants such com111ands in the absence of full analytical po,\rer. Dianetics can break.
up habits, sin1ply hy relieving the
norns which comJ11and them. Dianetics could. only change a training
_pattern if the individual consented

re-

right for rat~ and dogs and cats.

Thev run on the reactive type bank.
The~efore \Yhat we refer to, ordi.-;
naril y~ as conditioning, is actually a
norn con1n1a.n d laid down in a spe:cific tnon1ent. This is easily susceptibl e of clinic(ll proof.. The conditioning o f a lifetin1e on the subject, .
say, of eating 'vith a knife, breaks
do\\"n the instant that the norn com- toit.

mand getnanding it is de-intensified.

These discoveries were an addiThis is not theory, but actuality: tional proof that man was a self-de conditioning in fhe absence of norns tern1ined individual.
Ft trther in,

.,

DIANETICS

75

vestigation led to another finding :

that although the reactive bank vvas
exterior determinisn1 this detern1inisn1 was
a variable on the individual.

In other vvords, the detern1inisn1 laid

in by pain had a variable effect. The
san1e norn introduced into three different people n1ight bring about three
different reactions. l\1an is so thorough!y a self-detertnined organisnT
that he has a variable reaction to all
attempted deter.rninistns. Research
brought about the fact that he could
exercise a power of choice over the
reactive bank, even if in a lin1ited
manner. He had five \\rays to handle
a norn : he could attack it and its
.counterpart in the exterior world, he
could flee from it and its counterpart, he could avoid it and its counterpart, he could neglect if and its
.. counterparts, or he could succumb
to it. He ~ras self-determined to
some degree within this group of
reactions. And these are the reactions to any dangerous, contrasurvival problen1.
These are, by the \vay, known as
. '' 1n
.
the "black panther mechantsms
dianetic parlance. Imagine that a
black panther is sitting on the stairs.
There are five ways of handling the
situation for a man sitting in the living room and who has a desire tq go
upstairs. He could attack the panther, he could flee from it, he could
avoid it by going outside and coming up via the porch lattice-or entice the panther away as another
method of avoidance-he could simply refuse to admit it was a black
panther and attempt to go up any,

way, or he could simply lie still in

fear paralysis and hope that the
. black panther would either eat hin1
quietly \vitha_ut too n1uch pain or
n1erely walk off in antipathy to
corpses. (Fear-paralysis, denial of
dangerousness.)
N o-vv an analyzer does not handle
conscious level ~ standard . bank men1ories in this fashion. The analyzer evaluates the present and fu ture
in tern1s of experience and education of ~he past plus in1agination.
The standard bank is used for computation, not for emotional reaction,
guilt, self-r~vi1ement, et cetera. The
only valid data is that data in the
standard bank and in its search for
success, happiness, pleasure or ,;vhatever desirable end or n1erely in the
art of contemplation, the analyzer
must have reliable inforn1ation and
observation. It uses n1en1ory, conclusions drawn from experience and
conclusions drawn fron1 its conclusions and computes in various ways
to obtain correct answers. It avoids
a false datum as. a curse once it
kno\vs . it is false. And it is constantly re~evaluating the men1ory. files t<?
reform conclusions. The more experience it has, the better its anS\vers. Bad experience is .fine data
for comp~tation be.c ause it brings in
the necessity level. But the analyz~r
cannot compute reactive data, the
"unconscious memories" it cannot
reach and does not even kno\v about.
,,men1or1es
. "
.
S o t hese reactive
aren't n1emories at all as \Ve understand memory. They are something
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

'

. else. They \vere never tneant to be

recalled on the analytical level or to
be analyzed in any \vay. The analyzer, trying to get around that redtab bank sets up son1e circuits which
v.rould tax a Goldberg to duplicate.
The analyzer is trying to reach its
proper conscious level hanks. If it
cai1't, it can't con1pute right ans,vers.
If the analyzer keeps getting strange
and seen1ingly sourceless tnaterial
\vhich nevertheless has pain to enforce its acceptance, that -analyzer .
can get very \vr?ng an s \vers. And
the structural body can go vvrong.
And tnotives go vvrong. And sonlebody invents phrases ljke "it's hu~
n1an to err".

..

No, reactive "n1en1ories" aren't

metnories. Let's call then1 a gobd
n1edical tern1, engran-1 s-a lasting
trace-and modify the definition by
qualifying "lasting".
They were
certainly lasting enough pre-dianetics.
The engran1 is r~ceived, vve can
postulate, on a cellular leveL The
engrarn is cellular n1en1ory by the
cel1s and stored in the cells. We
\von't go further \vith this because
at present we \vant to stay out of
the problems of structure. But vve
can prove to anyone's satisfaction
that the reactive n1ind bank is apparently inside the cells then1selves, and
is not part of the hun1an n1ind banks
which are composited of, we suppose, nerve cells. Engrams ~re in
any kind of cell in the \vhole aggregation. They .do . not in the least deDIANETICS

'

ex-

pend upon nervous structure to

ist.
They use and prey upon
nervousstructure as we kno\v.it. So
we are not talking about n1emory
when we talk about engrams. We
are talking about cellular recordings
on the order of phonograph records,
stnell records, organic sensation .records, all very precise. And _when
we say reactive tnind we are talking
about no special part of the body but
a con1posite, cellular level moronic
n1ethod of ren1en1bering and computing.
Son1eday son1ebody n1ay
cut off a chunk of brain and cry
-" Eureka, this is the re~ctive mind."
Possibly.
But staying with our
functional con1putation, we can
n1ake good tin1e and get workable
results. And so \ve need to know no
seat for the reactive n1ind. And we
need to kno\v nothing about the exact structure of its banks. All \ve
want to kno\v is vvhat they do.
The reactive engram con1es in
\vith pain \vhen the analytical tnind
is tnore or less out of circuit. The
engran1 is not recorded in the conscious level banks. It cotnes in on a .
cellular level, just as though the cells
vvhich compose the body, suddenly
recognizing that the organisn1 is in
apparent danger of perishing, grab
data in an effort to save themselves
. on the order of a disintegrated, every
tnan for hin1self effort. But the data
they get is not disordered. It is most
terribly precise, n1ost alarmingly literal. It is exact. "Bean" means
"bean" in all the \vays the sound of
"bean" can mean "bean''.
Once received, this engram can

77

then lie dotii1ant, inactive. It takes

a rentote.ly sin1ilar, _ cot1scions level
experience to stir that engran1 up.
This 'keyin. 1non1ent evidently refiles
the engran1 within the red-tab ~anks
and gives it articulation. The words
of the engram get meaning. The
perc.eption;s get booked int.o the
sensory organs. Th~ engran1 is now
in place. After this it can be very
easily restimulated. The cells are
now capable o f back-seat driving.
By -engram we n1e.an, solely, the
..
actual impression--like the "\Vax 1n_dentions on a record-of the '' anconscious'' experience upon the body.
The engram as an enttre, expertence,
.

. .

we call a norn.
Well; these are the discoveries.
Once the,y bad been nta:de, it was
necessary to find out how they could

'

be applied~
Man, \ve have postulated~and it
is certainly working-is obeying the.
basic 'c on1tnand' SURVIVE! This
is a dynamic con1mand. It detnands
action. In lookhig over the n1atter
of obedience to this con1n1and titlrner-.
o_us computations were necessary.
Survive~
\Vell, the fitst ansvver
.and
. the too obvious one is that tnafl
is surviving as a unit orgartisn1. A
very thorough con1ptttation on thisabout two hundred thousa11d vvords. -revealed the fact .that wl~ile everything in the Universe could he _ex.- plaine'd-..by a few shtft:y t~trns of logic
~in tern1s- of personal survival, the
thing Wt\S unvvieldy and unworkable. We \vant thing~ to be \vork..

78

.. .

able. This is engirreering, not idle

goal. So
study. We have a definite _
let us see if man is all out fo.r man.
The whole r~ason for the organisn1's survival can be con1puted dovvn
into this single effort, the survival
of contenlJJOrary
n1ankind.
.
.
. All the
.

.1s to
;

reason a un :t organtsnl ~utvtves

let all, n1ankind 5Urvive. But that

does not work :vvell.

Now let us take a group, under
whi~h 've put syn1biotes.~
Let us
pQStulate that the unit orgaaisn1 survives wholly for the _group. Again,
a con1putation can he nlade that ex...
pl~ins everything down to group.
Grottp is the only reasont says this
c.on1pt1tation.
It's untvieldy but
there's .nothing 'vrong with it.
All right, let's try bringing it all
dovvn to sex-., And still it can be.
con1puted p.e rfectly, if it is a trifle
un,v.ieldy. The reason man as a unit
sttrvives is to ,e njoy sex and create
,p osterity. But it requires an enor...;
tnous uurnher of heavy, cunJbersonle,.
n1anipulations of logic that no one
\VOttJd like.
Investigating in the n1ind-going
to the G bject one is stt1dying and
really e:xan1ining it instead of 'vvindily
arguing about it and qttoting a\.tthority-it 'vas _discovered that an
apparent balance existed only when
and if all fott1'" d-rives were. relatively
in force. Each one cotnputed \vell
enough, but taken as the four..:fold
goal, they b alance. The con1puting
pet;on1es very sitnple. Behav-ior begins to loo_k .g ood. Using all four_
,

vve can predict.

A.STOUNDING SCIEN-CE-FICTION

Now comes the proof. Can we use

it? Does it work? It does. In1~
pedin1ents lie across these drives.
They have their O\Vn energy, these
impediments, a reverse polarity surcharge which inhibits the drive on
which they lie. . This is very sche~
matic but it computes and we can use
it in therapy. An unconscious period
containing physical pain and conceived or actual antagonistn to survival thwarts or blots or impedes the
flow of drive force. Begin to stack
up. these impedence on a drive and
it begins to damp markedly.
Now comes. arithn1etic.
There's a
.
good r eason to us~ the figure four.
There are four d.rives. 1""here are
fou.r levels of physical tone. If a
man's composite drive force is considered as four and his restin1tdated
-acute or chronic, either vvay-reactive n1ind force is high enough to
reduce that composite drive force below t\VO, the individual is insane. In
vievv of . the fact that .a norn can be
currently restiti1ulated to reduce that
force below tvvo, a condition of temporary insanity results. .
A norn can consist of father beating n1other during a chil.d's. an~ten.
Whef1 this norn is highly resttmulated, .the child, novv an adult, may
possibly dran1atize , it either as the
father or .the n1other and \vill carry
out the full dran1a., word for word.,

blo111 for blo"lV. .

In vie\v of the fact that ,vhen father beat n1other, father \Vas probably dran1atizing one of his own .
norns, another factor can be found
.

DIANETICS ,

here which .is highly interestin.g . ft

is contagion. N orns are C{Jntagio~ts. '
Papa has~ norn. . He beats n1other
into anaten. She now has a norn
word for word from hin1. The child
was anaten, maybe booted aside and
knocked out. The child is. part of
n1other's perceptics for that norn.
Mother dramatizes the norn on the
child.' The child has the norn. He
dramatizes it on another child
.
.
When adulthood is attained, the
norn is dramatized over and over.
Contagion.
Why do societies degenerate ? A
race com.e s to a new place. N,e w
life, few restin1ulators___;a restimulator being the environtnent's equivalent to the norn's perceptic content
-and high necessity . level .. which
n1eans high drive. , The race thrives
on the new frontier. And then begins this contagion, already pr~sent,
brought in part from the old environment. And the descending spiral can be observed.
Having a norn n1akes one slightly
anaten. Being' slightly a~ate11 one
more easily receives - new norns.
N orns carry p4ysica1 pain-psychosomatics~which reduces the general
tone and bring on further anaten.
And in a rapidly. descending spiral,
the individual decavs.
These were the computations
achieved by res~arch and investigation. Now it catne to making them
work. If they didn't work, we'd
have to change things and get new
principles. It happens that the above
works.

''

79

But to start them working was a his audio-tone, visio color, sn1ell,
di~cult thing. There was no way of taste organic n1en1ory and inlaginaknowing hovv n1any norns a patient tion. And it doesn't particularly inn1ight have. One could be cheer- crease his I. Q. I knew that I was
fully optimistic by this time. After far from the optin1um analyzer.
all, there was a pretty good con1pu It was ttecessary' to go back and
tation, son1e knowledge of the na- back in the livres of patients looking
. ture of the black enchantn1ent, and it for real norns, total anaten. lVIany
n1ight be possible to bring about a were found. Some were found that
''clear" -optimun1 \Vorking condition would release when the patient vvas
of the analyzer-in aln1ost any pa- ren1oved in tin1e back to thetn and
tient. But the road was full of was tnade to go over and over then1,
stones.
perceptic by perceptic. But there
'vere also norns that \Vould not reSeveral techniques were developed lease, and they should have, if the
all of \Vhich brought alleviation ap- original con1putation was cor~ect.
proxin1ating a couple thousand hours The optin1un1 con1puter n1ust a&a.of psycho-analysis. But that \vasn't lyze the data on which it operates,
good enough. They could bring and, once false data have h~en called
about better results than hypno- to its attention for questioning, the
analysis and bring them about much self-:.checking feature of the con1puter
n1ore easily. But that \Vasn't getting. should automatic-a lly reject that
the train over the strea.n1.
falsi tv.
I found out about locks. A lock
The fact that a notn vvouldn't reis a situation of tnental anguish. It lease \VOrried n1e ; either the basic
depends for its force on the norn to. idea that the "'brain \vas a perfect
\\~hich it is appended. The lock is
computer vvas wrong, or-hn1-111-m.
n1ore or less known to the analyzer. Before too long it \vas found that
It's a n1otnent of severe restimulation one had to have the first nornic inof" a norn. Psychoanalysis might be stant of ~each perceptic before the
called a study of the locks. I dis- later norn \vould go. That looked
covered that any patient I had had like order. Get the earliest pain asthousands upon thousands of locks, sqciated \vith, for instance, a squeakenough to keep me busy forever. ing street car wheel and later street
Ren1oval of locks alleviates. It even car vvheels, even in, bad norns, gave
knocks down chronic psychoson1atic no trouble. The perfect con1puter
ills-at times. It produces n1ore re ... \Vouldn't overcome the short circuit
suit than anything else so far known ,at level 256 if the san1e circuit was
elsewhere, but it doesn't cure. Re- shorted at level 21, but clear the
nloval of locks does not give the indi- short circuit-the false data-where it
vidual. all his mental powers back, first appeared, and then the com. .

80

.,/

ASTOUND! NG SCIENCE-FICTION

puter could readily find and correct

the later errors.
Then began the n1ost persistent
search possible to find the earliest
norn in any patient. This .\vas 1nad
\vork~ Utterly weird.
One day I found n1ys~lf vvith a
cotl).plete birth engta1n on "tny hartds.
At first I did not knovv vvhat it \vas.
Then there was the doctor's patter.
There was the headache, .t he ..eyedrops- Hello! . People can ren1etnber .b irth when they're properly
bucked -into it! Aha! -Birth's the
earliest norn. Everybody pas a birth.
We'll all be clears !
Ah, if it had been true! Everybody has a birth. And believe n1e,
birth is quite an experience, very
nornic, very aberrative.
Causes
asthrna and eyestrain and son1atics.-
galore. Birth is no picnic and the
child is son1etin1es furious, sometimes apathetic but definitely recording, definitely a human being with a
good idea of what's happening when
he isn't anaten. And when the norn
rises, he knows analytically all about
it. (And he can dramatize it, if he's
a doctor or she can dran1atize it if
she's a n1other. vVow, lots of dope
here. Hot d9pe.) But birth isn't all
the answer. Because people didn't
become clears and stop stuttering and
stop having ulcers and stop being
aberrated -and stop having den1on circuits when birth \Vas lifted. And
.
son1etimes birth didn't lift.
The last \vas enough for me. There
. was an axiom : find the earliest norn.
K!low where it \vound up? Twenty~

'

. DIANETICS

four h0urs after conception! Not all

case~, fortunately. Some cases waited
four days a~ter conception l;lefore
they got their first norn. The embryo anatens easily; evidently
there's cellular ana ten !
No staten1.ent as drastic as this~as
far beyond previous experience as
this-'-can be accepted,.eadily. I have
no explanation-- o_f the structure involved; for the engineering answer
of function, however, structural exE,l anation is ,not in1mediately necessary. I was after one and only one
thing; a technical process \vhereby
aberrations
could
be
eliminated
and
.
.
'
the full potentiality of the computational ability of the mind restored.
If that process involved accepting
provisionally that human cells
achieye awareness on the order of
cellular engrams as little as a day or
flO after conception, then for the
purposes at . hand that pro position
can, and must be, accepted. If it
had been necessary .to go back
through two thousand years of ge
netic m.e niory, I would still be going
back to find that first norn-but for ...
tunately there's no genetic men1ory,
as such. But there definitely is
something which the individual's
mind regards as prenatal norns.
Their objective . reality can be -debated by anyone who chooses t; do
so; their subj~ctive reality is beyond
debate-so much so that the process
works when, only when, and invariably when, we accept the reality of
those prenatal n1emories. We are
seeking a proce~s that cures aberra-

81

tions, not an explanation of the Uni. verse, the function of life, or anything else~ 'Therefore vve acc.ept as

it did.
What's arthritis? Fetal
dan1age or etnbryo datnage .
It so happens, it is 110\V knovvn,
.a vvorking-because it works-postu- that a clear can control all his body
late that prenatal en grants are re- . fluids. In an aberee the reactive
corded as early as twenty-four hours n1ind does a job of tJ1at. ]'he reafter conccption. The objective re- active tnind says things have to be
ality has been checked so far as ti111e such and so and that's survival. So
al}d lit11ited tn~ns pertnitted. And a n1an gro\Vs a vvithered arn1. That's
the objective reality of prenatal survival. Or he has inability to see,
norns is evidently quite valid. Any hysteric.aJ or actual blindness. That's
psychologist can ~check this if he survival. Sure it is. Good solid
kno\vs dianetic technique and can sense. I-Iad a norn about it, didn't
find _son1e t-vvins separated at birtlf. he?
But even if he found discrepancies
\Vhat's TB? Predist)osition of
the bald fac't retnait1s that individu- . the respiratory sytsetn to infection.
als can-n ot be rehabilitated unless the vVhat's this, \Vhat's that. You've got
prenatal engrams are accepted.
the proposition no\v. It \vor.ks. The
What happens to a child in a psychoson1atic ills, the arthritis, the
won1b? The con1monest events are itnpotence, this and that, they go
accidents, illnesses-and attetnpted away when the norns are cleared
abortions!
fron1 the bottotn.
Call_ the last an AA. Where do
That \vas the essence.. of the deripeople get ulcers? In the wo~b vation of the technical process. With
usually, AA. Full registry of all the research stage con1pleted, the acperceptics do1.-vn to the last syllable, tual application was the ren1aining
material vvhich can be fully drama- stage, and the gathering of data on
tized. The large~t part of the proof the final, all-in1portant question. The
is that lifting the engram of such an process worked-definitely and unevent cures the l~lcer!

equivocably ~worked. But the full

How does the fetus heal up with ,d efinition of a science requires that it
all this datnage? Ask a doctor about pert11it accurate description of how
twenty years hence-I've got my to produce .a desired result invarihands full. That's ~tructure, and ably. \hi ould the technique v..rork on
all types of minds, on every case?
right 110\V all I want .is. clear.
To date., over two hundred pa
What's that chronic cough? That's tient.s have been . treated ; of those
manlatts cough which compressed the tvvo hundred people, two hundred
baby into anaten when .he was five cures have been obtained. Dia11-etics
days after conception. She said it is a science because by following .
hurt and happened all the time. So readily prescribed techniques, vvhich

..

82

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

can be specifically stated, based on

definitely stated basic postulates, a
specifically described result can he
obtained in every case. There may,
conceivably, be exceptions to the.
technique no\v vvorked out, but I
trief.l hones tly to find exceptions and
did not; that's 'V'hy I tried so n1any
cases, of so many different types.
And sotne of then1 were really grueson1e cases.
\\rho is an aberee? Anybody vvho
has one or n1ore norns. And since
birth itself is a nornic experienceevery hutnan being born has at least
one norn!
The whole world, according to the
hypnotist~ needs nothing but to be
hypnotized. Just put another norn,
an artificial one into a tnan, even if

tts a mantc norn-makes the subject

"big" or "strong" or Hpowerful" plus
all other perceptics contained-and
he's all right. That's the basic
trouble. Reduction of self-determinisn1. So vve don't use hypnotisn1.
Besides, it's not workable on any
high percentage. If you've followed
this !ar without realizing that we are
trying to \vake up an analyzer, you
made the satne mistake I did for
many tnonths. . I tried to work this
stuff \Vith hypr~0sis. Well, it works,
after a slopp:y fashion. But how you
put a man to sleep who is already
three-quarters .asleep-normal, near
as I can discover-is a probletn I wish
could be solved. But fortunately it
.doesn't need solution.
The analyzer went to sleep \vith
ep,ch norn. Each norn had lock
I

DIANE TICS

norns-like it, also norns, but subsequent to it~and each chain of norns
...;_satne species, people have about
fifteen . or twenty chains on the average of ten or fifteen norns to the
thain-has about a thousand locks.
There are luckless people who have
hundreds of norns. They may be
sane. There are people who have
twenty norns and are insane. There
are people \vho are sane for years
and ~uddenly get into just the right
environn1e.n t and get restimulated
and go n1ad. And anybody who has
a norn ~e has had fully restimulated
has been 1~1ad-vox populi-for at
least once, even if only for ten minutes.
When we star~ to treat a patient,
\Ve are treating a pa.r tially asleep
analyzer-and the problem is to wake
him up in. the first norn and then
erase-that's right erase, they vanish
out of the reactive bank on recounting over and over with each perceptic-all subsequent norns. The locks
blow out without being touched, the
Doctrine of the True Datum work. ing full blast and the analyzer refusing to tolerate what it suddenly no:..
tices to be nonsense. We wake the
patient up with drugs. Benzadrine,
caffeine. Better ones will be invented. And as he recovers mental .
function en<?ugh to reach back a little \vays into his past, we begin to
alleviate. Then we finally find out
the reactive mind plot-why he had
to keep on being aberrated-and we
blow out .the demons-upsetting the
circuits-and all of a sudden we are
.AST-4U

83

at basic basic, first norn. Then vve

cotne forward, recounting each.norn
over and over until it hlo\vs avvay
and refiles as experience as opposed
to comn1and.
A clear has regression recall.
Basic personality, in an aberee, isn't
strong enough to go back so \ve use
\V hat we call the Diane tic re~'erie.
We found \vhy narco-synthesis is
so sloppy.. It puts the partially restimulated norn into full restin1ulation, keys all of it in. . The drug
turns off the son1atic-p11ysical pain
-so that it doesn't \\holly go a\vay.
..1\.ncl narco has no chance of going
hack far enough to get basic basic
and the one it reaches vvill pretend to
erase and then Vvill surge hack in
from sixty hours to sixty days.

very kind; doctors . \Vho ba\vled

n1atna out, et cetera, et cetera. I)atient usually has an enorn1ons despair charge ~round the loss of an
ally. That'll hold up a case.
\Ve've con1pletely by-passed how
this . ties in \vith n1odern psychology.
1\fter all, n1odern psychology has labels for n1any observed conditions.
H O\V about schizophrenia, for instance?
,..fhat's valence. An aberee has a
valence for every person in every
nor.n. f:le has basically _three, hinlself, tnother and fp.ther. Every norn
has drarnatic personnel. A va]ence
builds up in the reactive n1ind and
\valls off , a con1part1nent, ahsorl>ing
sotne of the analvzer-vvhich 1s shnt
dovvn hv restin1ulation. :N'ulti-val"
ence is con1n1on to everv aberee: The
valence of every aheree gets shifted
day to day dependjng upon \Vhorn
he n1eets. l-Ie tries to occuny
the
..
top-dog valence in every nornic
dran1atization. 1'aking this is the
highest survival c.on1putation that
can be n1ade hy the reactive tnjnd;
ahvavs
,., , . \vin.~ Break a dra1natization
and you break the patient, into an.
other valence. If von nreak h1111
do,.vn to being hitnself in that norn
he vvill probably an<i.~en or ~ get sick:
Keep breaking his dramatizations !
and he is disabled tnentallv.
..;

Does any special thing hold up a

case? Yes, the sytnpathy cotnputation. Patient had a tough nornic
background, then . broke his 'leg and
got sympathy. Thereafter he tends
to go around -vvith a sin1ulated
broken leg-arthritis, et cetera, et
cetera. These are hard to c.rack
son1etimes, but they should be
cracked first. They rnake a patient
"\vant to be sick". Sickness has a
high survival value says the ,reactive
n1ind. So it tailors up a body to he
sick, good and sick. Allies are usually grandmothers v.l ho protested
against the child being aborted-effort already ~ade, child list~ning in,
not knowing the words just then but
he'll know them later when he knows

his first words-nurses who were

84

..;

'

.,1

vVho \Vill practice Dianetics ? In

severe cases, doctors. -.They are \vell
schooled in the art of healing, they
are always being b~mbarded by
psychoson1atics and n1ental situa..
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION

tions. The doctor has, like the engineer, a certain necessity for resuits. There are several methods of
alleviation ~hich will work in a few
hours, break up a chronic illness in
a child, change valences, change a
person's position on the tin1e track
-people get caught in various places
where the conitnand says to be
caught-alter dran1a.tization pattern
and . generally handle the sick aberee.
In the general case, ho\vever-t_h e
, psychotic, neurotic, or n1erely suhoptin1utn inclividual-dianetics will .
probably be practiced by ,people of
intelligence and good drive on their
friends and families. Kno,ving all
the axion1s and tnechanisn1s, dianetics is eas)' to apply to the fairly
nortnal individual and can relieve
his oc.culusions and colds and .a rthritis and other psychoson1atic ills. It
can be u sed as well to prevent aberrations fron1 occurring and. can even
be applied to detern1ine the reactions
of others. Although the fun~lamentals
and tnechanisn1s are simple and, \vith
son1e study, very . easily applied,
partial infor111ation is dangerous, the
technique tnay be the stuff of \Vhich
sanity is 111ade but one is after all
engaging action with the very stuff
\\?hich creates niadness and he should
at least infor1n hin1self with a fe\v
hours study before he experitnents.
I have discussed here tl1e evolu'tion of Dianetics. Actually I have
concentrated upon Ahnortnal Dianetics. There are lVIedita1 f)ianetics,
Dvnan1ic
Dianetics-drives
and
structure-Political Dianetics, Mili.,;

DIANETICS

tary Dianetics~ Industrial Dianetics,

et cetera, et cetera, a!Jd not the leas~,
PREVENTIVE DIANETICS. On
that may hang the final answer to
society.

And now as an epilogue, Dianetics

is sun1marized in its current workable form. It does the f ollowing
things, b ased on an ample series of
'
cases :
1. Dianeti'c s is an organized science of thought bl.tilt on definite axioms; it apparently reveals the existence of na-t ural la\vs by which behavior can uniforn1ly be caused or
predicted in the unit organistn or
society. 2. Dianetics offers a therapeutic
technique 1vith \vhich we. can treat
any and all inc~rganic n1ental- and organic psychosotnatic ills, with assurance of con1plete cure in unselect-
eel cases. It produces a n1ental , stability in the "cleared" patient which
is far ~usperior to the current nortn.
(This staten1ent is accurate to date .;
it is conceded that further work may
der11onstrate son1e particul?-r case
sotne-vvhere \Vhich n1ay not entirely
respond.)
3. In Dianetics vve have a ' n1ethod
. of tin1e dislocation clissin1ilar to
l)arco-synthesis or .hypnosis which
is called the Dianetic reverie ; with it
the patient is -able to r each events
hitherto hidden fr~in hin1, erasing
~he physical and n1ental pain from
his life.
4. Dianetics gives us an ~nsight
into the potential capabilities of the
mind.
85

5. Dianetics reveals the basic destruction of the function of the

nature of man and his purposes and brain, by shock or surgery, vvill i1o
intents, with
longer be a necessary evil.
. the discoverv that these
are basically constructive and not
15. Dianetics offers a \~orkahle
evil.
explanation of the various physio6. Dianetics gives us an apprecia- logical e~ects of drugs and endocr1 ne
tion of the magnitude of events ne- substances and points out nt1111erous
cessary to aberrate an individual.
answers to former endocrine prob7. With Dianetics we discover the lems.
nature . of prenatal experience and
16. Dianetics gives a n1ore fundaits precise effect upon the postnatal tnental explanation of . the uses,
individual.

principles and fundamentals of hyp8. Dianetics discovered the. actual notism and similar mental phenomena.
aberrative factors of birth.
17. To sum up, Dianetics pro...
9. Dianetics , elucidates the entire
problem of "unconsciousness" and poses and experimentally supports
demonstrates conclusively that "total a new vie,ivpoint on Man and his
unconsciousness" does not exist behavior. It carries -with it the ne-.
. cessity of a new sort bf n1ental hyshort of death.
10. Dianetics shO\VS that an tnem- giene~ It indicates a ne\v tnethod
ories of all kinds are recorded ftilly of approach to the solution of the
.problen1s \vhich confront govern- ,
and retained.
11. Dianetics den1onstrates that rnents, social agen~ies, industries,
aberrative n1en1ories lie only in areas and, in short; man's sphere of enof ''unconsciousness'' and, converse- deavor. It suggests new fields of rely that only ''unconscious" n1en1ories search. Finally it offers a glin11ner
of hope that Man tnay continue his
are capable of aberrating.
12. Dianetics opens broad avenues process of evolution to\vard a higher
for research and poses nun1erous organisn1 \vithout straying to\vard
problen1S for solution. One new field, the danger point of his own de
for instance, is the suh-science of structton.
perceptics-the structure and functlon- of . perceiving and identifying
This is part of the story of the
stin1uli.
search. I vvrote it for you this \vay
13. Dianetics sets forth the non~ because you have minds with which
~rm theory of disease, en1 bracing,
to think. F 0r strictly professional
it has been estin1ated by con1petent pu hlications, I can, will and have
physicians, the cure of some seventy dressed this up so it is almost in1percent of n1an's pathology.
possible to understand, it's so exact.
14. Dianetics offers hope that the A lot of you have been reading tny
~

86

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION