From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 11 - April 1993
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/


Thoughts inspired by ...

... Ulrich's Article on Dianasis(1)

by Peter Shepherd(2), England

I would like to answer the questions asked by Ulrich at the end of
his article in Ivy 10 (`Thoughts inspired by...Dianasis') and
continue with some thoughts of my own, inspired by these questions.
He wants to know why Dianasis needs an extra Axiom 0 (`Theta is the
law and that is all the law there is') and whether this was inspired
by Crowley's `Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'.

Axioms: self-evident?

Axiom 0 is not necessarily self-evident - it is a high level (tone
40) viewpoint. It is a statement of Dianasis approach. It assumes
the definition of Theta from the Dianetic Axioms and so links
the Dianetic and Scientology Axioms (hence `Dian-asis'). Its truth
is discovered through Dianasis auditing, i.e. the as-isness,
Dianetically
(by unravelling the charge as it transfers from item to item in the
Bank), of the fixity of the mechanical conditions of existence.


Axiom 1 (`Life is basically a Static') is not self-evident either
- it's an hypothesis on which to build a possible explanation
of spirituality, which may or may not be borne out by inspection
during
the auditing process. One could equally view life as a mechanical
system - the reductionist view - so in that sense neither
are axioms (so self-evident as to be indisputable) but more like a
principle i.e. a fundamental proposition held to be basic in
any system or chain of reasoning, conduct or procedure.

I would prefer that Dianasis, as a fourth dynamic entity, has an
analytical
mind that uses workable principles, based on observation and subject
to research and development, rather than authoritative mathematical
philosophies.

Indeed it would be hard to find an indisputable axiom outside of mathe
matics
- life isn't like that. `Absolutes are unobtainable', for example,
ignores the certainty of objective truth (`that building is bigger
than my body') though it's valid enough as the principle that values
take their place on a gradient scale and generalisations are often
irrational. In fact any axiom may be true within one's own universe
or if you can get others to agree with you. Values are
feeling-oriented
and only then intellectualised. To understand Axiom 0 is to feel what
it is like to be an uptone Thetan - one who has pan-determined
understanding. This is what Dianasis is aiming for, since any break
in ARC is one step back on the spiritual path, closer to MEST not
Theta.

The Theta Bank

Axiom 1 and Factors 2/3 state that the abilities of a Thetan are to
postulate, perceive, consider and evaluate and to adopt viewpoints
of beingness. Nowhere does it state that these are fixed into
perpetuity.
The definition of not-OTness could be said to be fixed viewpoints,
fixed postulates, fixed perceptions (the MEST universe?), fixed
considerations
and fixed opinions. This is the `Theta Bank', which is only, to my
knowledge, directly and fully addressed with the Dianasis procedures.

Postulates are first contacted in auditing, when decisions made during
traumatic incidents or ARC breaks (for example) are found to conflict
with the original intentions. The first postulate -being incomplete
is the cause of the charge and discovering the conflicting second
postulate -releases it. Service facsimile handlings address this
area directly. The charge of the Theta Bank is the lies, false data,
misowned track and wrong explanations which are trapping the Being
by his own postulates.

Discovering the senior postulates of the actual Being though, rather
than the service facsimiles of the multitude of adopted viewpoints
the Being has identified with, requires a systematic address, such
as with the Dianasis procedure, of the conflict structures upon which
the Reactive Mind is based and which obscure the Theta Bank.

The Being has adopted fixed attitudes and beliefs and personalities
as safe solutions to the rigours of life as he has experienced it
and the oppositions he has encountered to his goals. Free of the
charge
on these he can adopt whatever viewpoint he wants - pan-determinism
as the result of ARC, not a moral principle. And there is no law in
the universe which says a Thetan cannot be whatever he wants. Irene
Mumford stated, 'Theta is the law and that is all the law there is
- the first and last Axiom of Dianasis, because anything else
is mechanics'.

Who makes the rules?

Although Irene Mumford arrived at the need for this statement
independently
of Crowley, her -Axiom has much the same meaning. Crowley -certainly
wasn't giving a licence for any kind of foul play as he points out
that the will, in a developed person, is directing love and `Love,
then, is the law'. In particular he was saying that cultural norms
and conditioning should not determine the ethical values of an
awakened
person.

The same message was delivered by Gurdjieff, and before him the Gnosis
philosophy, which postulated 96 laws under which normal man was
governed
and this was halved at each higher level until eventually, when `free
of the trip' there are no laws as the being is one with Source.

Similarly Irene Mumford recognised that a Being is not limited to
the laws of the MEST Universe. Things do not have to be that
way! The Theta -aspect of a Being is not subject to the laws which
govern (by first postulate agreement) his viewpoint in this shared
Universe. Theta makes any kind of postulates it wants and a large
part of -Dianasis Procedure is directed at rediscovering those first
postulates (as postulates are timeless they are to be found in the
here and now) so they may be kept or discarded at will. They may be
simple (like the Axioms) but they are obscured by the second
postulates,
which may be several layers thick. They have been heavily identified
with and so are not apparent to view, other than with a systematic
procedure of sufficient complexity and cunning.

Worthwhile games

Irene also pointed out that the purpose of life is not just to create
an effect (per Axiom 10). Rather this should state: The highest
purpose
of a Thetan in this universe is to make something out of nothing
(create)
and nothing out of something (destroy), thereby creating an effect
on self and/or others, and a Game.

For the human level of game, the golden rule of only causing an effect
on others that they can confront and which one would be willing to
experience oneself, applies to protect ARC with people who have
limited
confront and tolerance. Similarly agreements are made on standards
of what is good or bad and beautiful or ugly.

The way to attain a senior level of game is through  achieving
a high degree of ARC on all dynamics, of understanding one's enemies,
of viewing pan-determinedly - in short, empathy. Affinity (i.e.
love, compassion, respect) is recognising the strengths of others
without judgement, so one can willingly serve and be served -
only then can life without rules be workable.

With Understanding in place KRC can be at a high level of ethics,
and one can then rise above such considerations (while still
maintaining
them for that level of game) to the freedom of being able to
cause any effect and the freedom to be -effect of any cause, playing
better games with others equally free of MEST-Game hang-ups (like
fixed considerations and postulates - and eventually bodies).
In this context overts do not exist. The only law is will. The Being
puts in his own ethics (he always did via karma). A free level of
ethics is not `acting correctly' but playing a better game.


Free Theta

Axiom 0 is the rule-book prior to first postulates being made.
Auditing
is a gradual process of increasing knowingness as charge, caused by
frustrated first postulates, is freed. A choice is then available
to the Theta Being to keep the old first postulate or scrap it and
make a new one, at which time - Theta is the law and that is all
the law there is! The more charge off the case, the more free Theta
and the more willpower. The will has been freed.

Insights (awakenings) obtained through these procedures give a freedom
of choice and potential for action, that may or may not be fully taken
advantage of in daily life, because the Being has chosen to be part
of a composite system. The analytical mind is effectively a
combination
of the Being's intention or will, plus the conscious mental ego (inner
speech and feelings). It is closely tied to the unconscious mental
mechanisms used to automate thinking (otherwise every little action
would require a complex set of instructions). And then there is the
analogue of this in the brain - a mind/body-interface computer.
And of course there is the unconscious reactive aspect of mind,
encompassing
repressed conflicts and incomplete intentions. All the gamut of
conditioning
from the past, on all dynamics, is represented by these mechanics
and fixations that the Being has set up as safe solutions, and the
restimulation of the present helps to keep it all running. Like air
pressure, the Being is no longer conscious of it.

De-conditioning

Since this collection of programmed automaticities has necessarily
been so intimately connected with, in the process of living in and
as a body, it is all too easy to retain old habit patterns.
Fortunately
the brain is a re-programmable computer. This is achieved through
an act of will combined with practice - putting thought into action,
to integrate the mind and body.

To escape this conditioning, a conscious and disciplined effort is
necessary, working towards new and better patterns of composite
behaviour
in everyday life. Otherwise the old ways will tend to be maintained,
the realisations forgotten and the Being no less asleep. If will
conflicts
with action and reason with reality, there will tend to be a mind/body
split. Barriers that have been taken down can be put back again when
that seems the safe or easy solution - like not acting and putting
realisations into practice. For this reason analysis will need to
be directly relevant to the real world and the results integrated
back into objective reality, for it to be useful and meaningful. The
tools of the Project encourage this approach since they are based
on an objective Present Time viewpoint and handling in which real-life
dramatisation is recognised.

Of course much charge has to be reduced before the primary Theta
postulates
are contacted. Theses postulates have to do with our presence in
this Universe and the nature of its physics. When these have been
realised Native State is reclaimable. Until then objective reality
and the mechanical conditions of existence are the context in which
we operate, though from an increasingly Theta base (one foot in and
one foot out of the universe). Recovering Theta by exposing lies is
a gradient process but begins in the NOW - or not at all -
and it requires ruthless honesty and truthfulness. That is the
requisite
for power and that is the ethics of the matter.


Change of viewpoint

The freedom to change one's viewpoint is necessary to see all aspects
of a problem. If you can move from within through to near and afar
then you can get an as-isness. This is what you are trying to do with
a repetitive process in auditing, to look at all aspects of a subject
until the truth becomes apparent, and this is done at a higher level
with Dianasis procedure, loosening up the beingness of the person
so he is not in stuck viewpoints. Now he can move, he can look at
his real case. Before he had too close a view, too remote a view or,
if he couldn't look at an area, a totally obscured view.

Stuckness is the degree to which you have denied beingness to other
viewpoints because you have opposed them and not been able to let
go, to perceive that life is a game. Where the opposing terminal sits
is something you cannot look at or have, a space you cannot occupy
or be. Gradually we have condensed to the relatively limited viewpoint
of close proximity but mystery (Axiom 26). We are very close together
but know very little about one another. It all relies on communication
and observation, but you don't actually know what's under that skin
unless you can be that person - that understanding is true empathy.
Unless you can be other viewpoints you don't have enough insight to
as-is anything.

Rebirth

The most important mechanism that is examined in Dianasis is that
which causes us to need to return to bodies over and over. It is a
phenomenon that is restimulated by exteriorisation or the threat of
exteriorisation, which all of us in mortal bodies live with -
it therefore impinges on us throughout life as well as after death.
It is a phenomenon structured on polarities, as indeed is the Theta
Bank as a whole, on several levels. At the top is Game which has
players
versus opponents. Below them are Goals with terminals (viewpoints)
against opposing terminals. Then there are Problems with intention
counter-intention. The MEST universe itself is structured between
positive and negative poles and our Culture is good versus evil. All
of this is held together by Time, a two pole structure of past and
present.

Present time actions are the source of the `between life' phenomena
described above.The present time pole is something observable and
knowable and the Bank is actually being created NOW by the Thetan
to manipulate life. It's a compulsive unknown create and that
is the case.

Running the present time pole

This is not handled in terms of whole track implants (although it
has an apparancy of implantation) but in terms of its re-creation
in present time. If you are still being or not being something, doing
or not doing something, having or not having something - that
is what is creating your game. It's right now. You're not looking
for wrongnesses but for rightnesses - what's being done without
inspection. Because the Being has convinced himself it is the right
thing to do, it is now done as an automaticity.

The Being will realign everything in his game so that his viewpoint
is the correct viewpoint - and the Thetan is powerful! In this
way, it is Service Facsimiles that are binding the Bank together,
past safe solutions and decisions held in the present, aligned with
another polarity: right versus wrong. The Thetan can only be right
but you could say that all that's wrong with him is his rightnesses,
when they become fixed.

Dianasis is a method of looking at oneself in relation to present
time. By taking one pole down, the charge between them collapses,
like grounding an electric cable. Charge, change, motion and time
requires space between two poles (viewpoint and dimension point),
Theta itself is not a pole - these poles are its creation. OT-ness
is being totally in present time, which is equivalent to no time.

The previous method of running the past pole, the eternal whole track,
was like filling a bath with the plug out, it was an endless action
and hopelessly complex with all the unknowns and false data of the
past. The previous method was the right stick waved from the wrong
end. What is needed is a complex enough method of examining the
relative
simplicity and finiteness of present MEST - then you can sort
out the problem within a few years. You have to duplicate the
complexity
of MEST exactly in order to clear it and then you end up with the
simplicity of Theta. But Dianasis is about increasing ARC and
involvement
- not escaping to Cloud 9. Tone 40 and above is not a serene
indifference,
it is experiencing all experience by knowing and being the whole -
total ARC.

The Insight Project

As-isness is the basis of the auditing process but awareness of the
four mechanical conditions of existence (Axiom 11) is only
specifically
addressed within the Power processes and a full education in this
area is a pre-requisite to an OT viewpoint, as Filbert has described.
Since Dianasis became part of the overall Mental Development System
in Spring 1992 and was renamed The Insight Project, we have been
working
on a new route onto the Insight Project that takes this into account.
Firstly there is a home study Mental Development Course that enables
an individual with no prior experience of self-analysis to work alone
and with friends, partner and family on all the necessary
communication
and memory techniques to achieve an objective control of his mental
processes.






A Mental Development Course completion approximately corresponds
to a Scientology Grade IV case (able to realise and confront that
some of their ideas and attitudes may be irrational and have been
used fixedly, without inspection). We have developed a new Part 0
of The Insight Project which effectively prepares such a student for
work on viewpoint conflict-structures as they are run on Part I.
Indeed
our tests have shown that this very powerful and extensive set-up
enables the procedures of Part I to dig much deeper and achieve much
more and to reinforce this, the technical innovations of Part 0 have
now been incorporated into new Part I materials. Part 0 will also
be available for existing Dianasis students, to boost their progress.
It consists of a preliminary 25 hours audited intensive and the
remaining
sections are then solo audited.

Training materials throughout are being rewritten and rearranged
to make study and application much more straightforward and effective.
We have also incorporated our Scottish licence-holder Mike Wray's(3)
excellent solo-metering course
materials. This will certainly make the Project accessible to many
more interested people whether or not from a Scientology background,
and I would welcome their enquiries.



(1) IVy 10,page 11.

(2) Peter Shepherd is Chairman of Mental
Development Ltd, the company that is responsible for the delivery
of Dianasis services worldwide. He worked in training at Saint Hill
in the early `70s and later found a great deal of value in Gregory
Mitchell's system of mental development. See the article A New
Epistemology
in Ivy 5. Since March 1992 when Dianasis came under Mental
Development's wing and was renamed The Insight Project, he has been
helping to develop an approach towards the growth of human
consciousness
which combines these essential elements into the most effective whole.
He can be reached at: The Insight Project, 26 Church Road, Portslade
(Near Brighton), East Sussex BN41 4EA, England. Telephone 0273-883000.
England.

Ed. nowadays (8/2001) can be reached shepherd@trans4mind.com


(3)Mike Wray has an article in IVy 4,  December 1991, page 3 entitled
'Technical Evolution'. Ed.








Tue Jul 11 19:31:06 EDT 2006