From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 7 - August 1992
Book News - Who is John Dalmas?
A book review by John Dorne, Denmark
Some very interesting science fiction books might be coming your way,
if you care to read on. A little space opera, but mostly the action is
taking place on the surface on some planet - if on the physical plane
at all.
Indeed, instead of science fiction, they might be termed "spirit
fiction".
So who is John Dalmas? Well, he's an American of Swedish descent, who
has just about done it all - parachute infantry, army medic,
stevedore, merchant seaman, logger, smokejumper, administrative
forester, farm worker, creamery worker, technical writer, freelance
editor - and his experience is reflected in his writing.
He is writing - and that's my personal classification - two kinds of
science fiction: "Ordinary" - which is still very worthwile - and
"spiritual". In this review I'll deal only with the spiritual kind.
And by the way, according to Bob Ross he's written twenty some books.
I've only been able to dig up twelve, so far.
It's spirit-fiction
If you happen to have been in the C of S, and have since left it. And
if you have done, perhaps, some advanced levels, and been trained as a
spiritual counsellor. But particularly: If you haven't given up the
dreams you once entertained about what a thetan might be able to do
and experience, were he only free, you may come to love these books.
I do, and I've done so since the mid eighties, when I read my first
one.
Is/was John Dalmas a scientologist?
Well, really, who cares? He is striking awfully close to home with
respect to a lot of truths. And he's a good writer, too. Read the
books and judge for yourself.
I'm not going to reveal the plots to any great extent - it sort of
seems unfair when somebody else has taken the trouble - or fun! - to
write entire books to communicate them properly. One message in all
the books is: You can be sane, and society can be sane.
Furthermore, the "white hats" win, and usually somebody gets a session
- all written down. Plausible processes, too.
Bibliography
The books obviously represent a spiritual development in the author,
so I recommend you read them in the sequence given below, also
because, like Asimov, John Dalmas builds up various parts of the
universe in different books, later to combine them. However, each book
is an independent story.
"The Walkaway Clause", Tor, ISBN 0-812-53475-1. 1986. An assassin
meets some sane people.
"The Varkaus Conspiracy", Tor, ISBN 523-48-567-0. 1983 A sane
conspiracy. Principal character is a spiritually advanced person.
"The Reality Matrix", Baen Books, ISBN 0-671-65583-3. 1986. Something
is happening to the physical reality. Some people, independently of
each other, find out about something - and start acting. Recommended
by Poul Anderson and John Dorne (science fiction authors). Tighten
your spiritual seat belt for this one.
"The Playmasters", Baen Books. ISBN 0-671-65610-4. 1986. Once again,
as in the Reality Matrix, the author is weaving in and out of mest
reality and its foundations. There is players and pieces, rules and
arbiters.
"The Regiment", Baen Books, ISBN 0-671-69849-4. 1987. Mercenary troops
hired for resource planet. Play is wielded in a "standard" society as
sanity starts encroaching. The book contains an interesting "tone-
scale" chart.
"The Lantern of God", Baen Books, ISBN 0-671-69821-4. 1989. A
technically advanced - relatively - society sets out to take over a
more primitive society of - humans? Some metaphysical theories -
techniques, actually - are advanced, that will be novel to most
readers of IVy. I know them to be workable for some individuals. It's
a real cute story, too.
"The White Regiment", Baen Books, ISBN 0-671-69880-X. 1990. Sequel to
the regiment.
Not really a spiritual book, the following may yet offer some right
indications if you are sometimes unhappy with the political status quo
on the planet (this one). Could you imagine a sane president of the
USA, with the powers of an absolute monarch?
Well, John Dalmas could:
"The General's President", Baen Books, ISBN 0-671-65384-9. 1988.
So, to end off:
May you, dear reader, enjoy, and - let there be - spirit of play.
**********
Geoffrey Filbert's Excalibur Revisited
Reviewed by Leonard Dunn, England
The Editor has asked me to write an article on these processes to
accompany a review of the book that doesn't take in this side of it.
(See IVy 6, page 24. Ed.) May I say at the outset that I don't think
that I am the one best suited to do it as my experience of running
them is limited to just two people. Furthermore, I use them as an
extremely valuable basis from which to work and not as a "standard
tech". To me, standard tech has to be used on standard Pre Clears and
if you are wondering what they are then so am I. Back in the "old days
of scientology" PC's were treated on an entirely individual basis, in
accordance with their individual needs. I was trained on this and
still follow this practice.
The Importance of Lower Levels
Filbert's contention is that the church has never run these adequately
and has regarded the confidential Upper Levels as "the big ones". Many
who have been so audited in the church have not attained the results
that they hoped for with the Upper Levels. In consequence, the Lower
Levels in Filbert are very wide reaching and comprehensive. In Level 0
- Communication - for example, there is one really excellent process
that runs the Know to Mystery scale in conjunction with the expanded
CDEI scale - 72 actions in all if the PC is capable of running "not
know" and "know". These, he says, are only for really bright PCs. With
the lady that I am running at the moment, the 72 produced quite
fantastic results. We ran for hours on them with considerable gain
every session. One important thing that Filbert emphasises is that the
PC's knowingness is always superior to prepared lists.
Starting the case
Page 243 onwards describe how to start the case with six different
types of PC's. For myself, I prefer to start with his use of Straight-
wire - Page 271 - which starts with the command "Remember something".
After this I go on to Life Repair. The other things that he advocates
can be handled after this if necessary. I do agree with the church,
not that I often do, that Dianetics should not be run until the PC is
able to deal with the Whole Track. This is something that varies very
considerably from PC to PC.
Most of his processes are repetitive questions on all four flows. What
I have found to be workable with the two people I have run is to ask
the question, get the answer, but not to repeat the question if any
charge has shown up on the answer by virture of a Tone Arm indication.
When the charge has been cleaned, then I repeat the question. The
charge may be something quite divergent from the question's subject -
apparently - but I have found that when this charge is fully run,
often taking quite a long time, then the connection to the question
becomes apparent. This method may not work with all PC's but it has
with the two that I have handled.
Areas not touched by Filbert
In the Winter 1991 Issue of that excellent journal "The Free Spirit"
the editor, Hank Levin, wrote an article on the use of the paranormal
in auditing. This is something that I have found to be extremely
helpful. One's intuition, or Theta Perception, is of very great
importance if not running exactly by the book. It shows one what to
run and how to run it for the individual case. For example, with my
second PC she got nothing from the processes of "from where could you
communicate to ...". She could comm from anywhere but by running the
charge in regard to each topic it produced the desired results.
Apart from intuition I have, with this second PC, found that I have
been greatly helped by presence of another being who appears in spirit
form when needed. This has been very valuable in the use of two-way
communication (2WC). As I was a worker in the Spiritualist churches
prior to scientology, this was nothing new to me.
The individuality of pc's
These two cases of mine couldn't have been more different. My first
case was already Clear. If persons really are Clear it can be seen in
the way that they handle their lives. Her handling of very severe
problems with great ability made me think that she was already at this
level and a check on the meter proved it to be the case. Later, I
found that there was no charge on AA's 2 - 5 either. These had either
been handled in another life or she had never had them.
There seems to be quite a number of people who have been cleaned up
elsewhere but a certain amount of charge has accumulated in the
subsequent lives, that has to be cleared up. She ran the lower levels
staying mainly in current lifetime and ending with just a floating
needle. This was the level at which she ran comfortably for her.
Filbert advocates ignoring the FN's and going for cognitions. She has
realised since that a solo re-run would be helpful to her.
Cyclical auditing
I don't think that this concept was around when Filbert wrote his book
but it seems to me to be of very great value. The PC runs at his own
level and when at a higher level of awareness runs again those
processes that are needed to give the required cognitions. The re-run
can be done several times as the individual advances in outlook.
CASE 2 This lady was quite the opposite of No. 1. On almost every
process she would dig down for whole track material and handled things
that normally wouldn't be considered at this level. On Grade 0, for
example, she came up with whole track Tribunal incidents, located and
keyed out implants and ran out the highly aberrative loss of the home
universe. She has just completed Grade 1 and has run the Halver (see
LRH "History of Man") - and came up with an extremely heavy incident
that required my spiritual helper to take charge. The result of
running this was that she has gone Clear - and is acting like it.
Special rundowns
CASE 1 had done the lower levels and had been shown to be clean on the
upper ones but her OCA graph was still low on several columns, notably
Appreciative. She had had a great deal of invalidation in childhood
and had been forced into Roman Catholicism when utterly opposed to it
even as a small child. Remembering what LRH had said about admiration
being the most sought after particle I worked out a rundown to cover
admiration. Six hours on the first and second dynamics were enough and
her next graph was at or over the top on all columns and with the
resulting case gain and stability achieved by it.
CASE 2 had a heavy problem in regard to money, it amounted to a heavy
Present Time Problem but didn't respond to the usual methods of
handling these. In fact, it turned up in nearly every process so I
worked out the idea of using the processes that had produced the
greatest gain - notably the Know to Mystery scale/CDEI Scale with
money as the only terminal, in accordance with Filbert, but running
each scale separately. Ran one or two other processes which produced
great improvement. There has still been some charge, but heavily
reduced. It will be interesting to see the effect that her going Clear
will produce in this area.
Positive thinking
Neither Filbert nor LRH paid any attention to this. Those of you who
are familiar with my views will know that I am greatly concerned with
this area, and introduce it as a parallel study, and this has produced
very great results with both of my cases.
Upper, confidential levels
These differ from those of LRH but as I have not run them yet I cannot
offer any comments on them as to their workability. Two of my friends,
however, are currently working on his highest level - exponential
processing, which consists of 6,480 processes. Although they have only
just started, one has done 100 of them, both are getting good results.
One who has done the first part of Dianasis tells me that the
processes that she had run there are very similar to Filbert.
To summarise, I have found the processes that I have used with my own
variations as needed, have proved to be very workable.
(Leonard Dunn came into Scientology in 1952, and took the standard
auditor training of the time (Called HPA, Hubbard Professional
Auditor) in 1954/55. He has had little training since then: Solo
auditor training and Hubbard Standard Dianetic Auditor. He worked as a
librarian in North London, and did not do much auditing. He retired
early, in 1972, and bought a house on the Isle of Wight (south coast
of England, south of Southampton). He was interested in art, but did
not have time to practice it when working. One of the early things he
did when he moved to the Isle of Wight was to start an art society
(and also teach himself to paint and sculpt). The art society
continues to this day and from it he has drawn a handfull of
preclears, who he audits at no charge, since his pension is adequate
for his needs. He will be writing an article on the 1950's training he
had and on the way he audits, which will probably come in the next
number of IVy. Perhaps a lesson to learn from his experience is that
you do not need lots of superlative training in order to audit and
produce startling results. IVy Ed)
**********
The Gentle Art Of Interviewing And Interrogation by R.F.Royal and
S.R.Schutt, Prentice-Hall, 1976.
A book review by Frank Gordon, USA
There is an interesting parallel to the restim-destim cycle of
auditing in this book.
The authors state: "There are only two physiological systems
basically: those that deal with pain and pleasure .. Merely asking a
question produces stress (p.146)
Also, "Sometimes prior to the relief of stress, one can induce stress.
For example, 'I don't want you to be nervous about what I am going to
say'". (p.147)
Then the stress is relieved: "A simple 'So what!' is the most powerful
relief furnishing tool known to the interviewer/interrogator. 'You
lied about your income tax. So what! Doesn't everybody?'"
"After furnishing relief, it is necessary to reestablish stress and
re-relieve it a number of times so as to establish a pattern of
psychological dependence ...(p. 148)
In this way a cycle is established. The interrogator first expresses
empathy for a subject with stressful guilt feelings. He restimulates
these: "Have you ever stolen a cookie?" and relieves them: "So what?
Hasn't everyone?" After a moment of relief, he then re-applies the
stress, and releases it. Thus the subject comes to depend upon the
interrogator for stress relief. The authors call this a "conditioned
reflex", and a major aim is to establish this. The byproduct of this
cycle is information.
The authors point out the danger of "over-conditioning" (an over-
dependence upon the interrogator for stress relief) and resulting
false confessions. They also emphasize the moral obligation to assist
the self-incriminated subject in adjusting to the consequences of his
confession.
The above pattern is interesting as a parallel to the restimulation -
destimulation cycle of auditing and any situation where a person
becomes dependent and "reactive" to others or the environment; and may
very well apply to the PTS-SP relation. E.g., can one get into a PTS-
SP relation without such a prior dependance having been established?
This aspect of PTSness, to my knowledge, has not been explored.