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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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Frank figures out Phil (addressed to Frank Gordon)
by Phil Spickler
29 May 99

Dear Frank,
      At the risk of sounding somewhat like a broken record, it truly and
always is a great pleasure to hear from you, and I smile with great favor
upon the words that you bestow upon this mere fragment of an agon.

      I must frankly and openly confess that you have unveiled one of my
somewhat hidden penchants, which is for a less anthropomorphisized view of
theta as in the shape of a thetan, or as some might call it, a spiritual
being.  I tend to shear away from that viewpoint, since it seems as though
it's more of a Newtonian construction in the sense that Newton compartmented
things off as though they were disconnected and discrete rather than as
functions of one another, namely, absolute space, absolute matter, absolute
energy, possibly even time, until some centuries later along came that little
amazing and dreamy-eyed Austrian, Albert Einstein, who described the universe
as the space-time continuum, with lots of hyphens -- a bigger and better
definition that has made possible even more extraordinary things than Newton
e'er dreamed of.

       Truly, the Eastern philosophers seem to have taken a view of
consciousness in much the same way, which partially explains why some of the
most famous and far-out theoretical physicists and mathematicians have
enjoyed and embraced aspects of such Eastern philosophies.

      From my own dabblings in this area, with the ever-present possibility
that opposites arise together, if you strongly postulate an "I," you should
be able to look for and find a "non-I," as ridiculous as that sounds.  But
the Western-style metaphysician tends to posit a strong "I," ego if you will,
as a discrete, separate-from-everything, source point, that then requires
quite an extraordinary repair system, as well as an  offensive and defensive
system, to keep it from getting mangled; whereas a "non-I" doesn't have any
of those problems, does it?

       Now what I'm talking about with all these words is of course a rough
analogy to the Newtonian and the Einsteinian world view.

       Getting down to cases and clearing for just a moment, it's just
possible that the notion of all the things that require getting rid of or
handling, under the heading of "case," are only there because of the notion
or notions of what someone thinks they are.  That last statement ought to
make this fellow Anatta as happy as heck!

      Anyhow, if one defines oneself somewhat differently, more like
something that might come out of fuzzy logic or chaos theory or something
like a space-time continuum or even the world of quantum mechanics, it's
possible to carry the Buddhist notion of finding out what you really aren't
to quite an amazing degree, even to the point of losing, happily, one's fixed
attachment to all the notions of what is self, which blows the "I-grouper"
all to heck and gives the composite a chance to pleasantly and gradiently
dissolve, as an undreamed-of view of what we might really be, which can only
be hinted at through negative statements about it, will then appear.

       So if you were fooling around with my new dance called the two-step,
which is aimed at oversimplifying clearing, you can use a simple stable datum
like, "Everything I experience I will at once think, feel, and consider
'Isn't that absolutely wonderful!'"  This will cause all kinds of entities,
in or out of bodies, to appear, so as to make that simple notion difficult or
impossible; and when they do, instead of claiming all these thoughts and
feelings and appearances as being simply automatic manifestations of self,
you can just treat them as something that's arrived to let you know it's
there, and by using the simplest of auditing tools, first clear up the
misconception that it's you, and secondly give whatever it is a full
opportunity for a greater freedom.

      That's pretty much the gist of the two-step, which uses admiration and
help to promote a lot of simple and high-quality theta clearing.  It's
necessary to have a pretty loose and flexible view of theta, as well as
topics like interior and exterior, and particularly the considerations that
are held about such notions, 'cause practically everything you run into in
this type of clearing is going to be in a condition of long-term difficulties
concerning location.  And so at this time don't worry about being a thetan or
a spiritual being or anything else yourself, just be a good auditor and as
you know, auditors when they're auditing don't have cases, but do help others
to handle their cases, which usually makes auditors feel wonderful.

       So, bottom line is, any time one makes a postulate, practically
everything in the universe which has problems, difficulties or disagreements
with that postulate is going to show up, in many cases very much claiming to
be "you," the "real you."  And this gives you a chance to become a great
auditor, with a perfect comm cycle and the utter willingness to use
admiration and help to provide a greater freedom for something or someone
else.

       Returning for just a moment to 1950 and the merry merry month of May
when Ron first came out with his book on Dianetics: he issued quite a number
of postulates having to do with the rights of human beings to own their minds
and the content of their minds and to have a working manual for the repair
and maintenance as well as improvement of said mind.  This was at a time when
the human mind was pretty well owned by medical psychiatry and its country
cousins the psychologists.  This was the time of the prefrontal lobotomy,
electroconvulsive shock therapy, and legal warehousing of people who didn't
seem to fit in.  Ron also posited that a large percentage of humankind's
physical ills were psychosomatic in nature.  So there were some of the
postulates put out in 1950, May, and they immediately caused the appearance
of entities in and out of bodies that felt threatened or were in great
disagreement with such notions or saw them as a potential loss of power and
income.  Thus, before 1950 ended, the American Medical Association, the
American Psychiatric Association, and probably other organizations that felt
threatened by the notion of people who could think and act clearly, were on a
big campaign to "Let's get Hubbard!"

      Now I always thought that what Ron did was a very, very brave thing to
do, and taking on power groups with that much political and legal clout was
very, very, very gutsy.  If Ron had never done anything beyond 1950, I will
always hold him in the highest esteem and consider him (in that period) to
have been one of the finest role models for those that appreciate courage and
the ability to keep a postulate in space, no matter what.  What the old
redhead who took a lot of punches in his lifetime went on to become, and the
type of offensive and defensive organizations that he eventually founded to
protect the "I" that he developed, is probably very well known to all who
hear these words.  But 49 years later I still say "Hail" to the memory of
Ron, 1950.

      At this point I've become lost in my own rhapsody, so in some further
posting, dear Frank, I shall endeavor a more coherent communication.  And
lastly, you know that I always appreciate your titles -- Very best, Phil

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