If you want to know "
what is Scientology?", you have to
really look at
Dianetics...
Dianetics started it all off with a bang in
1950 - so I guess this is where we begin.
Dianetics was published in 1950 in America by Lafayette Ronald Hubbard
(1911-1986), a pulp science-fiction writer. Basically Dianetics revolves
around the statement that our mind is divided into two major portions,
the analytical mind and
the reactive mind. Dianetics postulates that our analytical mind
is like an unfaltering computer, never wrong, recording everything faithfully:
The analytical mind is not just a good computer, it
is a perfect computer. It never makes a mistake. It cannot err in
any way so long as a human being is reasonably intact (unless something
has carried away a piece of his mental equipment).
- Dianetics, p.66
Our abberation supposedly comes from the
reactive mind which takes over
in moments of pain and unconsciousness. It kicks in then and records them.
These incidents then get restimulated (or "
take charge") by incidents with
like characteristics.
So with all these moments (called engrams) floating around, we
get pretty messed up. So far so good... To get rid of these engrams, we
need auditing. This
is when you sit down with an auditor
and relive these memories by "reverie" until they are without pain and
able to be assimilated into our "standard memory banks". It all sounds
very plausible, all the buzz words there... However, it claims 100%
effectivenesss over all psychosomatic illnesses, including "arthritis,
bursitis, asthma, allergies, sinusitis, coronary trouble, high blood pressure
and so on, down the whole catalogue of pyschosomatic ills, adding a few
more which were never specifically classified as psychosomatic, such as
the common cold" (Dianetics, p.75). All abberrant behaviour, illnesses
or diminuition of a person's abilities are attributed to the "reactive
bank".
Engrams and the Reactive Mind
So, what do these "engrams" consist of? Why do they effect us so much?
According to DMSMH, as the book is known, engrams are records of every
moment of pain and unconsciousness ever experience by a person. This later
included even those occuring in a past life. These moments are caught up
in the reactive bank, and according to Hubbard:
Clinical tests prove these statements to be scientific facts:
-
The mind records on some level continuously during the entire life of the
organism.
-
All recordings of the lifetime are available.
-
"Unconsciousness", in which the mind is oblivious of its surroundings,
is possible in death and does not exist as total amnesia in life.
-
All mental and physical derangements of a psychic nature come about freom
moments of "unconsciousness".
-
Such moments can be reached and drained of charge with the result of returning
the mind to optimum operating condition.
Dianetics, p.80
If a situation contains the visual, colour, sound, taste, or feel (etc.)
characteristics of a previous engram, the former will consolidate the effect
of the latter. Jim Bianchi explains it better in his FAQ:
Basically, the mechanism of restimulation is: a person blunders
into a wall, falls, strikes their head and is momentarily rendered unconscious.
While they are unconscious, the reactive mind is still busily recording
all that is happening -- a blue car goes by, a dog barks, the wind gusts,
somone shouts "Geez, you must be blind!" At some future time, if a dog
barks, the wind blows, and a blue car goes by, the person may go blind
(or temporarily "grey out"). When the analytical min received the impressions
of the dog, wind, car, etc., the reactive mind took over (in the manner
of a "fight or flight" reflex) and the analytical mind shut down the optic
nerves because the phrase "Geez, you must be blind" contained in the reactive
mind was interpreted literally as a command.
- Jim Bianchi, Scientology.FAQ
So... The reactive mind "seeks to direct the organism solely
on a stimulus-response basis. It thinks only in identitites".
Once the very first engram (or basic-basic has been gotten rid
of (or "erased"), a person is supposedly Clear,
unabberrated, free from all deficiencies, and with a higher IQ. A strange
thing, happened to one of the first "clears", in 1950, when being put on
show at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles. She, being a Physics major,
was unable to recall a basic physics formula. Remember, a clear is meant
to have "a near perfect memory" - she could not even recall the colour
of Hubbard's tie when his back was turned! I just don't understand that.
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