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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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Here I go again, or, Can you top this?
By Phil Spickler
31 Aug 99


      Somewhere in the dim recesses of time, it is possible, if you have
hyper-acute hearing mechanically magnified 10- or 12,000,000 times, you may
just possibly be able to hear a voice, obviously a very faint voice, crying
out, over and over again, a single word: "Thought!"

       Well, for goodness sakes -- I wonder what that's all about?  "Thought"
is one of those words that probably should be well-defined, if that's really
possible, but better yet, one should sit down with a substance that seems to
be the opposite of thought, namely some modeling clay, and demonstrate in
that clay the word "thought."  I dare you, dear reader or anyone listening
in, to try this.  It's a dare, because you very well might not find it very
easy to do, sort of like trying to do "theta" or "thetan" in clay.
Nevertheless, it's a good exercise, and if you're not careful will probably
blow you out of all kinds of heads on the way to expressing the word in clay.

        Or in the words of Omar the Tent-Maker, from that famed poem,
translated or written by Fitzgerald, "As I was walking down the way/ I met a
potter thumping his wet clay/ And it murmured, with its all-obliterated
tongue,/ 'Gently, brother!  Gently, pray.'"

        In the early and mysterious days of Dianetics and Scientology, it
hath been said or rumored that all roads, like those that lead to Rome, must
in auditing lead to thought.  What a horrifying simplicity!  I'm sure this
idea will kick many of us directly in our complexities, wherever those are
kept and located.  But nonetheless, and at the risk of causing great dismay,
it would seem, when put to the test, that behind all existence is thought.

        Possibly, and perhaps even more importantly, would be the knowledge
of the source of that thought, since once you correctly identify the source
of anything, the power to create, to cause to persist, or to destroy, is at
once and immediately and directly at hand.  All auditing, and anything that
might fall under the definition of auditing that I've ever witnessed, is
aimed at taking someone through whatever they have to be taken through until
they recover the thought, the postulate, the consideration, the opinion, but
best of all the source of the aforementioned.

       Sometimes the road back to this simplicity takes awhile, and needs be
filled with extremely complicated Sturm und Drang, but eventually, if the job
is very well done, that's what is arrived at: the idea and its source.  The
awesome power that is released at this point is that of being able, through
understanding of who the source is and what the idea is, to see all that has
resulted from a given source holding a given postulate or consideration.

       And now, through the knowledge of these things, the first and most
fundamental freedom of all is realized: namely, the freedom to change one's
mind, to create new thought, to un-create old thought -- it's absolutely
marvelous!  Talk about total freedom, and this is what you're talking about.

      But of course we don't wish to blink out everything, so we're not going
for the absolute of complete knowledge of source and source's ideas.  That's
better left to those who wish to be no more.

     This is where all the power is to be found, and all that missing
responsibility.  This is what self-determinism really has to do with, and the
understanding of how we aberrate ourselves with our own self-determinism.
And as you can quickly see, since this obliterates all motivators and excuses
for failure, in other words, all service facsimiles, which is the essence of
the stuff that makes being human possible, this idea in both Dianetics and
Scientology has never really been what could be called a popular idea; and
when it was fairly well written up in the little book called _Advanced
Procedures and Axioms_, that book has long held the record for being the
least-read, the least purchased, and the least popular of any of Ron's
writings.

       It is to be presumed that what I am talking about will also create a
general feeling of unreality for those hearing about these matters, and that
little or nothing more will be said concerning such consarned dang-fool
notions.

        A few of Ron's better one-liners concerning such matters are to be
found in statements like "Considerations take rank over the mechanics of
existence," or "Postulates and live communication being senior to MEST can
bring about a change in MEST without causing persistence."

      Depending upon just how simple, which is to say just how powerful, you
wish to be, either in potential or realized, the simple formula is to gain
knowledge, as fully as possible, of postulates and considerations, but more
basic than all of that is to truly determine whose postulates and
considerations may be in effect.  This is aimed very closely at the notion
that is very difficult to disturb in most people, which causes folks to have
to become very good philosophers in passing, namely, the notion of what, or
perhaps who, is self.

       However, coming to the best possible understanding of self one can is
vital to getting the correct source or sources of the postulates that seem to
be making of this self what it considers itself to be.  (After that one, just
lean over and I'll hold the cup and you spit into it.)

       It's darn interesting to note that when you are doing some auditing,
say a Dianetic chain for example, if at any point along the chain the idea or
the postulate that has led and will continue to lead to that particular type
of experience pops out and is viewed correctly as to its wording and its
source, the whole bloody chain and all its flows and all its charge, without
moving another division of Tone Arm on an E-meter, simply blinks out and
ceases to exist.  It goes beyond erasure -- that's slow stuff, and often
leaves marks in your copybook.  This is just --it simply doesn't exist
anymore.  It's quite miraculous, and if you've never experienced it as a pc
or watched it happen as an auditor, that's really too bad, because you're
missing some heavy-duty reality.

       It's exciting, but it's also scary, because it suggests the
possibility of complete eradication and extinction of that which you call
"self," even though you may be quietly sitting at home, sipping a brandy and
thinking of writing me a poison-pen letter, absolutely certain that what you
are has been, is now, and will be.  And yet, this suggests that if you were
to spot, accidentally or on purpose, the idea of "you" and the source of that
idea, zzip!  All gone.  And now you are the Nameless One, and cannot be
spoken of in words or sentences, or described.

       Well, OK, that's enough of this for today's exercise in environmental
menaces by yours truly.  In the next chapter of The Road to Extinction, we'll
try to insert information about thought or theta into situations ranging from
the most mundane to the most esoteric, and I sure hope there's a few of us
around by the time of this next posting to act as receipt points for it, so
don't do any of the things mentioned in today's message in the privacy of
your living room, but hang around until next we meet.

       All the best -- Phil
P.S.   Ron, with perhaps a touch of Zen perspicacity, once wrote that the
thetan, or a thetan, also called the spiritual being by some, was what you
were before you mocked yourself up.  I think a careful or even casual reading
and duplication of that statement can certainly lead someone away from
thinking (symbolizing) and more in the direction of thought.