From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 19 - November 1994
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Facsimiles(1)
Flemming Funch, USA
Facsimiles are at the root of just about any kind of case. The
understanding of how they work is very central to the subject of
clearing.
Now, I realize that most people translate 'facsimiles'
into meaning 'pictures', and they think that when they are
Clear they don't have any stuff like that. But, there is a lot more
to it than that.
A facsimile is basically a mental copy. That is, you keep an
internal representation of something that happened externally. That
is not just a picture. It can contain all perceptions: visual,
auditory,
kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory, and any sub-divisions thereof.
Also, it can contain perceptual positions (viewpoints), identities,
language, thoughts, mass, energy, space, time, intention, structure,
etc. Anything that the external agreed-upon world contains can
be copied into a facsimile.
The trouble with facsimiles is that they aren't the real thing.
We can argue that the physical universe is rather illusory, too, but
it is a lot more real than most copies made of it. So, instead
of dealing with what is actually there we deal with a copy of what
is there.
If the physical universe is the territory, then the facsimiles
are the map. Maps can be very useful for navigating by and for
simplifying
things. But, when you start mistaking the map for the territory, and
when you look only at the map when you could be exploring the
territory,
then we are getting into the field of aberration.
A facsimile is usually a frozen snapshot taken at some specific
point in time. It is then preserved and carried forward through time.
It becomes part of the person's mind.
A filter of life
The facsimile becomes a filter that the person is perceiving
life through. Instead of dealing with the environment exactly as it
is, it is filtered through facsimiles that will identify what it means
and what an appropriate response would be. The underlying thought
is that the world is too overwhelming to perceive directly; it is
easier to remember the closest similar facsimile and respond according
to the contents of that.
But, responding to something else than what is there is never
going to be as good as being in present time, perceiving and dealing
with the actual events. Various degrees of aberration can be observed,
but copying is never as effective as the real thing. When it gets
to the point of getting a headache when one sees a red car, and
things like that, we are obviously talking rather unsane behavior.
Semantic Reactions are automatic responses based on facsimiles
in one's mind rather than on actual present time events. Copies of
situations from other places, other times, and the meanings attached
to them form the basis for the biased perception of the current
situation,
and former viewpoints and responses are replayed out of context.
The present time reality is what it is. All you need to know
about it is right in from of you. It has no other hidden meaning than
exactly what is there to perceive. Using facsimiles as filters to
perceive through will add meaning to the scene, but only meaning that
is out of context, and that further removes your overall perception
from the truth.
There are many manifestations of facsimiles: traumatic incidents,
somatics, fixed ideas, problems, ARC breaks, implants, GPMs,
identities,
entities, etc. All are redundant copies of perceptions, viewpoints,
thoughts, etc., taken out of context.
Essence of clearing
Clearing is basically the ongoing process of replacing facsimiles
with present time perception, and replacing semantic reactions with
dynamic responses. It is basically pulling one's attention units
and anchorpoints into present time dealing with what is actually
there.
That doesn't cut away any options if it is done in the correct
order. See, time and space are basically illusionary barriers, really
they are just camouflaged present time. But, there are several
layers of lies involved.
In order to have a problem with a facsimile one must create
a reality somewhere in space-time, decide that one can't really be
there, and therefore take a facsimile of it, limit one's sphere of
influence to one's 'present time' environment, and then mix
it up with the other space-time coordinates. It is a similar mechanism
as to how one manages to get out of valence.
Clearing a facsimile should not be done as a method of escaping
one's responsibility for other times, spaces, viewpoints, etc. It
would tend to have adverse effects if done with that intention.
Facsimile
clearing is done to clear up the misunderstanding that the present
environment is some other place. That brings you into present time,
as well as into present space, present viewpoint. From there you
can expand your sphere of responsibility of cause to cover more of
space-time, more viewpoints, etc.
In other words, there is an inversion phenomenon that has
been going on. Creating a universe, then deciding one can't be
responsible
for it, shrinking one's sphere of influence, and then mis-owning
alter-ised
frozen versions of parts of the universe, and using those to replenish
one's havingness. That is a very tricky setup, it forms quite a trap.
You can see it in most types of case: causing something, forgetting
about it, assigning other authorship to it, identifying with it. It
is a clever way of getting things to persist.
LRH said that one would be better off without facsimiles, which
I think is quite a useful truth, if we define 'facsimiles'
well enough. Because some people tend to extrapolate it into meaning
that you would be better off without anything whatsoever, so that
whatever you bump into in your mind is something to get rid of. I
wouldn't find that to be very wise.
Replacing facsimile havingness
The idea in Clearing is to replace the havingness of facsimiles
with the havingness of the actual present time reality. It is
certainly
not to get rid of all havingnesses, it is rather to improve them.
We aren't saying either that one shouldn't have anchor points,
attention units, circuits, connections, postulates, emotions, etc.
The trouble is with copies used instead of the real thing, not with
all the many other interesting things a being can do. If you plan
on operating in the physical universe you do need some sort of
structure
to keep track of what you are doing, which is what we call a mind.
The advice here is just not to confuse it with the actual universe
if you don't want to.
It appears to me that it is wiser to construct a mind out of
connections rather than out of facsimiles. If you want the events
in one part of space-time to have some kind of bearing on the events
in some other part of space-time, or if you just want to note a
certain
association or similarity -- then make a connection between them.
It is not necessary to take a complete copy and to drag it around.
Connections are not as aberrative as facsimiles. You connect up the
real stuff rather than copies of it, and there is no frozen meaning
attached to it.
Facsimiles and the clearing thereof apply to any case level.
What changes is how wide areas of influence we address. Clear could
be said to be the turning point where one now has more than 50% power
of choice as to one's personal 1D semantic reactions, one is more
in present time than anywhere else. Similar Clear states can then
be accomplished across wider dynamics.
Clearing of 2D involves the development of the ability to keep
relations to other people in present time without mixing them up
with other relations at other times. 3D Clear would be the ability
to keep a group activity in present time without confusing it with
copies of other group activities. And so forth with the other
dynamics.
Structure is still necessary to operate the different dynamics
and play games and so forth. But, it is not necessary to put any fixed
content into the structures. It is more useful to have dynamic
structures
and to deal with whatever content one runs into in present time. The
structures would be called a mind on 1D, various techniques and
protocols
on 2D, organization and admin on 3D, etc. All of them are better off
being dynamic rather than fixed.
As mentioned before, there has been a tendency in clearing to
either ignore structures, or to try to get rid of them. Structures
are sometimes unnecessary, but more often they just need to be cleared
of stuck content and maybe adjusted a little bit.
Facsimiles generally represent fixed content. You have the answer
before you get the question. Facsimiles generally become
'held-down-7s'
in the calculator, and will make it more difficult to deal with what
is there. Getting rid of the calculator is not a good idea, but
getting
rid of the stuck numbers is.
I hope this makes it more clear what it is we are addressing
in clearing.
<$FPage 51 of Flemming Funchs Technical
Essays, volume 2, Essay # 99 15 July 1992. These books can be
obtained direct from Flemming.
The address is: 7448 Oak Park Avenue, Van Nuys, CA 91406 USA, or:
ffunch@newciv.org