View source for Time (7ACC 540729)

'''Series:''' 7th Advanced Clinical Course (7ACC)

'''Date:''' 29 July 1954

'''Speaker:''' L. Ron Hubbard

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Want to talk to you now about time.

Time is a subject which was introduced very early into this universe and it has been with it ever since.

The very obviousness of time has obfuscated time. Time is something that one can very, very easily not have enough of and at the same time have too much of and at the same time not be in.

The whole subject of time is a confusing subject because it is a consideration which took place along with – along with, not after or before because there wasn't any time at the moment the consideration called time was made, you see? It took place right along with space, energy. So it was space, energy, time or energy, space and time.

Yesterday I was writing up some board meeting minutes for a corporation, which was the first board meeting of that organization and I was singularly struck by the fact that the board of directors had just got through electing the board of directors and at the same time, slightly after that in the minutes, put the corporation into effect. It didn't even vaguely matter which came first because as far as that organization was concerned, everything came simultaneously.

You have several directors and these directors are not directors till they elect themselves as directors, but in order to elect themselves as directors they have to be directors. So that you have to assume with those first board minutes, instantaneous time. So it doesn't matter then which resolution comes first in those first board minutes because time has not been created. How is time created then?

Time is created immediately after these basic postulates with the postulate of change or the introduction of policy. And as soon as policy comes in or new considerations come in, then we begin to get consecutive time.

The first few board minutes of any corporation are more or less nebulous with regard to time. They might as well have all taken place in zero minutes at the beginning of the world. You see that? It doesn't matter. The people that elect the board of directors are the board of directors before they elect the board of directors.

Now, you are the space before you make the space, you are the energy before you make the energy, after you make the energy you are before the energy. The time which is postulated at that point is postulated in a time when there is no time, which is not any time at all, which might as well be now as then. You might as well be postulating time just this very instant, which is the time you postulated at the beginning of this universe. This instant, in absence of the consideration called time, is the instant of the creation of this universe, is the instant of the end of this universe. If no time has been postulated, then all time would be one time.

A preclear who ceases to postulate time ceases to have time. And that's the first thing that you can learn about time. Unless you are putting things on the future time track, consistently and continually, you will not have any time track.

Because, was there a board of directors or a single director at the beginning of track on this universe who made all the postulates and then elected you to the board afterwards? Or were you part of the board? Well, you could be running on this very well, simply being recruited to this particular organization called physical universe. You could have been recruited to it afterwards, but the moment you were recruited to it, you could only have been recruited to it if you had agreed to its time continuum – in other words, agreed to a uniform rate of change. And had you agreed to this uniform rate of change, then you would then have a uniform rate of change, otherwise you'd be in 1776 or 2060, while everybody else was in 1954.

Well, in view of the fact that the particles themselves of this universe are a matter of consideration – they stem from consideration, they are themselves consideration, the space in which those particles exist are themselves consideration – we are not then at any time dealing with anything else but considerations.

We are dealing with these considerations and these considerations are only complicated and fixed to the degree that they are agreed upon. If you have agreed solidly with these considerations, why, then you have the considerations with which you've agreed. It was not necessary for you to be the prime mover to be part of this universe. The moment you have agreed to the considerations which compose this universe, you are at its inception, you are at its end, you are at its present, but you are running under the consideration that time is taking place.

And as long as you're running under that consideration, you say, "Fine, we'll go along. Time track – wonderful; time is progressing." You start looking at clocks: "Clocks are keeping time for me; the bus schedule is keeping time for me; the motion of the Earth is keeping time for me; the precession of planets and stars are keeping time for me; everything is keeping time for me – my wife keeps time for me by serving breakfast at a certain time; everybody keeps time for me."

"Time? Time? Time. What time? What time is it? Do I have any time?" No, you become motionless. You become dependent on everything else to keep time and make the considerations, and then you don't continue to agree with those considerations that are made. All you'd have to do is just go on agreeing with those considerations, you'd move right on along the time track just as nice as you please. But you just drop – even drop out of the basis of consideration. You drop your own consideration of the fact that time is taking place, at that time moment, time ceases to take place. Do we see that clearly?

In other words, time is a consideration; these other things are consideration. And after this consideration is made, it doesn't mean then that all considerations start moving. In such a wise that we make a consideration that there is time, then this doesn't immediately put all considerations in motion or create anything more than that which is already created with considerations with a changing factor of time.

The definition of time itself is very important to you: Time is the co-action of particles. You can't have action of particles at all unless you have space. If you have space, then you can have change in space. And when you have a change in space, then you have a different time. There is the time from the moment the particle was at position A – that's one time – now another time when the particle has been moved to position B. There could have been no motion taking place whatsoever unless you have made a postulate of motion from position A to position B. And if you have made this consideration from position A to position B, then you will have motion and you will have time because you've said, "Position B is then a later time than position A" – a later time.

What is this word time? You might as well have said this: "There is a consecutive shift of position." You ask somebody what time it is, you just asked somebody, "What consecutive shift of position is it?" And if he answered you truly, he would say – if he gave you the full date and everything else, he would say, "It is the fifteen-degree position past zenith for Sun on its two-hundred revolution since its winter solstice." Quarter after twelve to you. Two hundred – day of the year.

That's time. If the Sun hadn't shifted two hundred times, you wouldn't have had two hundred days. But it isn't that that is doing it, simply because it marks it.

Let's look at that now. Just because it's doing it is no reason it is creating it. It is simply a particle which is moving in space. And Earth is a particle which is revolving in space.

And the Sun wouldn't be there and Earth wouldn't be there and nothing else would be there, unless we were running on the basic consideration and agreement that it was there.

Now, in addition to the simple change-of-position idea – you see, that's an idea. Here, I'll give you an example of it: I'll take this book here and just consider, at this moment, everything is static, see? No motion at this instant – no time, no motion. Okay?

A new time. See that? It does not require an articulation, a verbalization or anything else. It's so simple that it is overlooked. In order to conceive that this book can move from this position on the desk over to the second position on the desk, one must simply have conceived a new set of considerations which are consecutive in each position of motion over to this new position, which would have brought in this play: that each one of these are after the consideration that the book was here.

Now, it's very embarrassing – when an auditor is running Opening Procedure by Duplication, he is using perfect duplications, perfect duplications, he tells the preclear, every time he picks up a volume, to duplicate it – if the auditor forgets to have him consider that it's there again. Because it's an invalidation of the preclear – it vanishes, you see? Makes a perfect duplicate of it and the object isn't there.

In other words, then to go back to that object a new time, the auditor had better say, if he is using this part of that procedure – "Make a perfect duplicate of it," as part of his routine – he'd better, then, also state when he sends him back toward this book, just before he sends him back toward it, he'd say, "Consider there is a book over there." Now, he'd say, "Consider there is a book over there," not "Look at the book over there," because as far as the preclear is concerned, he's just unmocked it. Actually, if you're working a preclear who is getting into good shape, that book will be invisible.

All right. So he has to consider there is a book there, then he has to consider that he has moved across to there and he has to consider that all these things are taking place. And if he considers them, then he has time. Time is the co-action of particles.

Now, the time that we're dealing with is a time with which we can stay in good agreement. So therefore, it's a uniform rate of change. In other words, we're considering and considering and considering and considering and considering.

Now, we could be doing it very rapidly with regard to a particle in the wall. We consider that it's there – and let's say the wall is being pulled this way – we consider that it's there, there, there. In other words, we keep considering that that particle is coming closer.

But it takes a brand-new consideration every time to have a particle have a space to move it into. Now got that? Every time you see a particle move, actually, somewhere in some automatic fashion, and so on – we don't care about the mechanism – you have to consider space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position. You get motion.

If you look at an airplane going overhead and you're seeing that airplane – if you just see it go overhead – you'll have to be saying, "Space, airplane, position; space, airplane, position; space, airplane, position; space, air – " and you'll see a jet plane go across the sky.

But if you aren't at least in contact with the automaticity which is doing this, if you aren't at least agreed to this, you won't see any airplane go across the sky; you won't have any space and it certainly will have no position.

Now, what happens to an individual when his time factor starts to go to pieces? He gets stuck in time. He gets stuck at those moments when he is sufficiently rattled, confused or upset – in other words, he is given a new consideration that all is confused. And he doesn't at that moment have time to make new considerations that there is time or agree with the fact there is time. Or he resents the fact that there is time. And so he loses time. So he gets stuck on the time track.

It isn't energy that sticks anybody on the time track. It's this fact: Somebody told him to move and he resented it, so he didn't move. Somebody told him to stay still, one way or the other – he resented it, so he didn't move.

What's he done? He has fallen out of agreement about the progress of particles. Communication itself has been used to shift his consideration about considerations. Somebody demonstrates to him completely that they are time – they tell him to stay in one place.

You can demonstrate that to an individual very easily with a bullet. He's going ahead (beautiful automaticity), he's just mocking-up things flying here and things flying there, regiments of soldiers marching here and marching there and in one way or another, why, he's just as much a part of the enemy as he is part of himself, but he's got a new consideration that he is part of himself. And this bullet comes through space. And if he were able to see it – a Civil War cannonball, for instance, he could have seen very easily (they only traveled about sixty miles an hour) and he would have done this space, particle, position, you know, space, cannonball, position; space, cannonball, position; space, cannonball, position; space – boom!

He has just considered himself into a complete confusion, hasn't he? He's considered himself right on down the line to an impact.

So he says after a while, "Now, look. The best thing to do when you see anything that even faintly resembles a cannonball, you don't say, 'Space, particle, position; space, particle, position.' No, you don't! You say nuthin'." Fellow has learned to keep his mouth shut.

"We don't see cannonballs. Nope."

But he's in agreement with the man on the right and he's in agreement with the man on the left and they're in agreement with the men on the right and the left. And he's standing on the ground and he's in agreement with a body and all these things are thoroughly in agreement with the fellow who fired the cannonball and so the cannonball will come across anyway.

And boy, is he invalidated now. On his right and his left and behind him and below him he stayed in agreement with all other things which were in agreement on the subject of rate of change. He stayed in agreement with all these other things which were saying, "Space, particle, position." See, all these other things were saying it and he stays in agreement with them, so he is saying, "Space, particle, agreement" – unwillingly, unwittingly. And this will leave him really hung. This will leave him with a certain unreality. Well, he's postulated no time and so he can get stuck on the time track. You see that?

Only his mock-up of it is kind of thin because he depended for the solidity of mock-ups, such as the material universe, upon all these other people mocking them up too. Everybody is mocking them up. He is just staying in agreement with everybody and he doesn't quite have to mock them up and so forth. He doesn't have to quite mock them up, so what has he got? He's got a dependency upon the agreement to keep time for him. So if he's done this, then he's lost his power to completely unmock everything, hasn't he?

Time. As you conceive it, the time that is running on your watch is simply the motion of a bunch of little wheels and a couple of hands and a second hand. And that's just consecutive motions. Those are changes in space. And everywhere you look, mechanically, you will find that time never amounts to anything else than a change of position of particle in space or an agreement with something which is monitoring the change of position of a particle in space. See, two conditions here.

If something is postulating the change of the position of a particle in space and you're agreeing with that something, then you will also get a change of position of particle in space. You understand that? It's just a consecutive consideration, but that is all time ever is, is a change of position of a particle in space.

To see anything you have to have space, particle, position. Right? All right.

Now, in order to stay in good agreement, it would be a very, very good thing to have a uniform rate of change, wouldn't it? Let's all together now, chant – and I don't mean this as a class, but it's sort of the universe is saying, "Let's all together chant 'Space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position.' And we'll chant it together so that we're all uniformly saying this and we will then have time, because we're saying it" – not for any other reason – "We are postulating it." And so we've got space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position as the hymn of time itself. And it goes right on running all the way down any years that are, because those are the years.

Now, let's not get divided up again on the subject of "Well now, there's thought." The old Theta-MEST Theory is a terrifically interesting theory simply because it led into this: the idea that there was a universe and there was thought – theta, thought – without wavelength, without mass, without time, without position in space. This was life. All right. And that was impinged upon something else called the physical universe, which was a mechanical entity which did things in a peculiar way. And these two things together, theta-MEST interacting, gave us life forms.

Well, we get a further refinement of that and we find that the physical universe itself is simply this chanted, "Space, particle, position." So that is coming from thought itself.

So what do we get? We get the appearance of a physical universe which has a seniority in mechanics. See? You see that? It has this seniority in mechanics and it appears to be above consideration. The reason it's above consideration is because of the agreement you have made with so many people concerning the continuation of it.

Continuation itself is another word which could be supplanted for time; so is survival another word that could be supplanted.

All right. Now, what then would we say is the common denominator of time? Consideration.

All right. Below this level in the field of mechanics, what would we say is the common denominator of time? Change. That is the one thing we could say was a common denominator of all kinds of time anywhere, anyhow, in any universe. That would be change. You see that?

Now, let's not lose that one. A certain set of particles or a certain body of individualized life forms or an automaticity postulated by such life forms could go on saying – for a certain set of particles, you see – that there are a certain set of particles, that they're moving in a uniform rate of change and they're postulating the same space over and over again. And we would get, at that moment, a uniform time continuum. We would get a time continuum and that is a condition which has to exist in a universe and is that which makes a universe peculiar – it's the time continuum of that universe.

In other words, this agreed-upon chant – it's where we are chanting, with whom we are chanting that makes the universe. You get the idea? So we have the people of Earth and this universe more or less chanting, "Space, particle, position; space, particle, position" or it's simply agreeing with something that's chanting, "Space, particle, position," you see?

And so we've got time, time, time, time, time. If all of a sudden the chant stopped, nothing would move. You might still have some space on a hangover of a past consideration or something, but you wouldn't have any new particles moving anywhere. The walls would simply vanish. The space would go, to a very marked degree. Everything would kind of look like a Step Level V caving in on himself. That's the way things would look if this stopped. It'd just look just like that because that's what he's done.

All right. Then, in order for a person to have time, to be in present time, it is necessary to be in contact – at least in contact – with those particles which are being formed by this continuous hymn to time. It's at least necessary to be in contact with the particles. If we're not, we're out of time. If we're simply agreeing, then we're out of time. And we get stuck on the time track, we get stuck in old facsimiles, we get all messed up. We're not postulating any time – we're postulating no time at all – and we're not looking at any time particles, not looking at any particles or their change. And as a result, where's anybody going to get any time?

Well, he has to either start chanting himself, "Space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position," until he gets time going again for himself or you have him feel the walls. And feeling the walls, he'll say, "Ahhh, what do you know? Getting into time."

Now, agreement is a very important thing because a thetan begins to depend upon a universe keeping its own chant and stops chanting himself.

And what happens if he does this? Then he has to agree with something which is vibrating, doesn't he? So he himself becomes mass. And that's how a thetan becomes mass. See, he's not chanting anymore, so he goes thoroughly into agreement, 100 percent into an agreement with something that's doing the chanting, you see? And then he doesn't chant anymore at all and then he falls away and he falls out of agreement with what he was depending on to keep on agreeing with him for.

See, he depended on that wall and now he decides that wall is harmful to him and he's no longer chanting. He's no longer now in contact with the wall because it's dangerous. Where's he going to get any time? He isn't going to get any.

But he may fish around and contact another time continuum in another universe and be to some vague degree in contact with that time continuum. And that's another entire body of beings, and so forth, and automaticities chanting, "Space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position; space, particle, position." That's another song going on. And you get the same dissonance, the same confusion that you would get if you had John Philip Sousa and Bach playing in the same audience hall. It would be quite interesting, wouldn't it? But let's say Bach was only playing faintly and Sousa was blaring forward. You would just every once in a while be disturbed by the fact that there was another note in there somewhere or there was a clavichord pounding somewhere in a Philip Sousa band. And this would seem odd to you and this would seem very strange.

Now let's go around the other way and get them up to equal magnitude. John Philip Sousa playing just as loud as Bach. That would be a mess, wouldn't it?

Well, it could only get that much of a mess if the individual is almost equally dependent upon these two bands to tell him where he is – one orchestra and a band. And so, he looks – he doesn't know whether the orchestra is going to tell him or the band is going to tell him. And they're different beats, and so forth, and he just gets very confused. There is a condition where he'd merely be stuck between two universes but think of himself as a universe now, a bunch of experiences, collected items of one kind or another, old chains, tin cans, bric-a-brac. Just think of this fellow with mock-ups and so forth as a universe, a viewpoint, and he very well can be, and it's a universe that he has stopped timing and there's nobody else around there anyplace to chant anything. So his universe is motionless.

And we get an individual with a black cowl or mass of energy hanging around his face or something. It's just running on its last postulate and its postulate that it will continue to chant. But there it is and so forth and he's just faintly – you see, there's just some faint pulse about it and that's about all.

So it isn't moving – he isn't moving on that track anymore and yet he is in this universe. He's in the physical universe and he's not moving on his own universe track anymore. He could always mock-up his own universe track.

So the easiest solution for an auditor is simply to collect somebody into at least one universe. You know, supposing this hall was a very big hall and you found the preclear in the middle of it. And the orchestra playing Bach was on one end of it and the band playing Sousa was on the other end of it, but the hall was big enough so that if you were at one end you wouldn't hear the other instruments. We would just lead our preclear down to John Philip Sousa's band, see? He wouldn't hear any Bach anymore, it wouldn't disturb him at all. Or we'd lead him over to Bach – doesn't care which orchestra is there. He's at least hearing some music now.

Well, that's a good thing because here is the basics of it – a preclear gets out of time.

He, himself, is sort of mocked-up in agreement. Therefore, he gets to vibrating, and he as a thetan vibrates out of phase with. You see? He is vibrating bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop and the walls are vibrating bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.

"Oh," he'd say, "what time is it?"

He'd have to get some kind of a duplication to run it out or straighten it out. Just by having him contact the walls of any universe by 8-C Opening Procedure, you therefore get him straightened out on his vibrations and he stops being so much mass, simply by getting him into good agreement. You understand that?

All right. If the common denominator of time is change, then why do you think a preclear is so anxious to change? What is his anxiety about change? Well, he has doubly inverted. He finally depended on just agreement alone – he wasn't postulating time anymore and he was just depending on this universe alone to say, "Change, change, change, change, change," see? "Change particle in space; change of position of particle in space, change of position of particle in space; change, change, change." He's depended on that. And he stopped depending on that, he fell away from it.

He says, "Look, wait a minute. To have any survival or to go on with any of these items or any of these responsibilities or anything, I – something has got to change around here. So let's change. Change. Let's change other people, let's change myself – let's change other people first. Let's change other things. Well, I can't change those, so, people are easy to change, let's try to change those – change those. Well, I can't change those. I'll change myself. I'll change myself, I'll change myself, I'll change myself, I'll change myself. Change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change." Boom!

Totally fixed, self, personal time track with no agreement anyplace else, which looks like a solid mass because it's changing so fast. And there's nobody agreeing with it. And you've got your psychotic down at the sanitarium.

Now, there's why people have compulsive changes and so forth. 8-C Opening Procedure will get people out of that. Opening Procedure by Duplication will do this because you're changing at a uniform rate, and you, the auditor, are in agreement with him.

And as a result, he will be able to come on up out of it until he is re-timed. A preclear who is having any difficulty at all, the first thing that would be wrong with him, he'd be out of time.

See? Just like a car falls out of time – its motor doesn't run well – well, he's fallen out of time and he's going off on his own time factor or he's done something.

His own time factor, to be aberrative to him, would have to be totally automatic, you see? He'd have to have set it up and now be unconscious of it. And he's out of time. And that's why he is obsessively changing. And why the individual who is worst off will want to change the fastest and the hardest and has the most compulsion and obsession about it.

Now, do you understand what time is? You see how you could possibly process it? And do you see that you have been processing it? Okay.

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