The Fundamentals of Thought 1956 Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Causation of Knowledge

Scientology as a science is composed of many axioms (self-evident truths, as in geometry). There are some fifty-six of these axioms in addition to the two hundred more axioms of Dianetics which preceded the Scientology axioms.

The first axiom in Scientology is:

Axiom I. Life is basically a static. (Definition : A life static has no mass, no motion, no wave-length, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive.)

Definition: In Scientology, the word "postulate" means to cause a thinkingness or consideration. It is a specially applied word and is defined as causative thinkingness.

Axiom 2. The static is capable of considerations, postulates, and opinions.

Axiom 3. Space, energy, objects, form and time are the result of considerations made and/or agreed upon or not by the static, and are perceived solely because the static considers that it can perceive them.

Axiom 4. Space is a viewpoint of dimension. (Space is caused by looking out from a point. The only actuality of space is the agreed upon consideration that one perceives through something and this we call space.)

Axiom 5. Energy consists of postulated particles in space. (One considers that energy exists and that he can perceive energy. One also considers that energy behaves according to certain agreed upon laws. These assumptions or considerations are the totality of energy.)

Axiom 6. Objects consist of grouped particles.

Axiom 7. Time is basically a postulate that space and particles

Axiom 8. The apparency of time is the change of position of particles in space.

Axiom 9. Change is the primary manifestation of time.

Axiom 10. The highest purpose in the universe is the creation of an effect.

These first ten axioms of Scientology are the most fundamental " truths" (by which we mean commonly held considerations). Here we have thought and life and the physical universe in their relation, one to the other. Regardless of further considerations, ideas, assumptions and conditions there lies beneath them these first ten truths.

It is as though one had entered into an honourable bargain with fellow beings to hold these things in common. Once this is done, or once such a " contract " or agreement exists, one has the fundamentals of a universe. Specialised considerations based on the above make one or another kind of universe.

The physical universe which we see around us and in which we live was created on these fundamentals without regard to Who created it. Its creation was agreed upon. In order to perceive it, one must agree that it exists.

There are three classes of universes. There is first, foremost and most evident, the physical universe of spaces, stars, suns, land, sea, air and living forms. Then there is the other fellow's universe which may or may not be agreed upon by his associates. This he holds to himself. The phenomenon of this universe is included in the field of the " mind " as described earlier. Then listed last here, but first perceived, is one's own universe.

The phenomena of universes is an interesting one, since one's own universe can be overwhelmed by the universes of others. These in Scientology we call valences (extra personalities, cells, apparent beingnesses). Valences and universes are the same thing, essentially.

For example, one while living in the physical universe can be overpowered by the universe of, let us say, father. While one stilI retains his own valence or identity one is yet acting or thinking or suffering or feeling .somewhat like father. Even though one is. by oneself, there is this additional apparent beingness. Although father is absent, his commands are still present, thus we get such things as " duty ", "obedience ", " training " and even " education". Each one of these is caused by some part of another universe to a greater or lesser degree.

Regardless of how one reacts to universes he still remains in some· degree himself. It is the effort of many to struggle against universes or valences. In fact this is a game and the essence of games. The totality of the impulse of aberrated people is the effort to separate one's own self as a thetan from the various universes with which he feels himself too intimately associated. One is only oppressed by a universe when he feels he can have nothing of that universe. One is only victimised by "Father's universe" when one is in protest against father. One protests against the physical universe only when he feels that he can have no part of it or does not belong in it or, as in religion, is not looked upon kindly by what he conceives to be the Creator of the physical universe. There is a basic law about universes: the postulates of the creator of any universe are the postulates which "work" in that universe. Thus one may feel uncomfortable in the universe of another.

Universes, as considered in games earlier, could be considered the playing fields of life. One plays willingly or one plays unwillingly. When one begins to play unwillingly he is apt to discover himself victimized by and interiorized into the universe of some game. It is against this phenomenon that a person protests. Consider the matter of a jail. On the surface of it, as Voltaire dis-covered, a jail provides.food and shelter and leisure time. This would seem to be the ambition of many people, but the jail provides as well, a restriction without one's consent. The only difference between being in jail and being the king in a castle so far as liberty is concerned, is one's own desires in the matter and one's own ability to command one's environment. As a king in a castle one would be causative. His will, statement, thinkingness would have an effect upon others. Being in jail one is an effect in that the thinkingness of others finds him its target. Here we have in terms of universes the most rudimentary example of cause and effect. We must, however, assume, because it is so evident, that an individual only gets into traps and circumstances he intends to get into. Certain it is, that having gotten into such a position, he may be unwilling to remain in it, but a trap is always preceded by one's own choice of entrance. We must assume a very wide freedom of choice on the part of a thetan, since it is almost impossible to conceive how a thetan could get himself trapped even though he consented to it. By actual demonstration a thetan goes through walls, barriers, vanishes space, appears anywhere at will and does other remarkable things. It must be then that an individual can be trapped only when he considers that he is trapped. In view of the fact that the totality of existence is based upon his own considerations, we find that the limitations he has must have been invited to himself, otherwise they could not be eradicated by the individual under processing, since the only one that is present with the preclear is the Auditor, and past associates of the preclear, while not present, do desensitize under auditing in the preclear's mind. Therefore it must have been the preclear who kept them there. The preclear by processing can resolve all of his difficulties without going and finding other persons or consulting other universes. Thus, the totality of entrapment, aberration, even injury. torture, insanity, and other distasteful items are basically considerations a thetan is making and holding right now in present time. This must be the case since time itself is a postulate or consideration on his own part.

The greatest philosophical clamour or quarrel has been waged around the subject of " knowledge " and there is nothing preposterous on the subject of knowledge that cannot be found in the philosophical texts. The superiority and ascendancy of Scientology depends upon the fact that it has transcended this philosophical quarrel on the subject of knowingness and Scientology contains in itself the basics of knowledge.

By knowledge we mean assured belief, that which is known, information, instruction; enlightenment, learning; practical skill. By knowledge we mean data, factors and whatever can be thought about or perceived.

The reason why knowledge has been misunderstood in philosophy is that it is only half the answer. There is no allness to knowledge. By definition, knowledge is that which is perceived or learned or taken from another source. This patently then means that when one learns he is being an effect.

We see in Axiom 10 that "the highest purpose in the universe is the creation of an effect". This is in direct contradiction to knowledge although one of course can know how to create an effect.

Opposed to knowledge we have the neglected half of existence, which is the creation of knowledge, the creation of data, the creation of thought, the causative consideration, self-evolved ideas as opposed to ideas otherwise evolved. The reason Scientology is such a fascinating study is that it takes apart the other fellow's ideas and permits one to create some of his own. Scientology gives us the common denominators of objects, energies, spaces, universes, livingness and thought itself.

There is cause and effect. Cause could be defined as emanation. It c0uld be defined also, for purposes of communication, as sourcepoint. If you consider a river flowing to the sea, the place where it began would be the source-point or cause and the place where it went into the sea would be the effect-point and the sea would be the effect of the river. The man firing the gun is cause; the man receiving the bullet is effect. The one making a statement is causing a communication, the one receiving the statement is the effect of the communication. A basic definition of communication is cause-distance-effect.

Almost all anxieties and upsets in human relations come about through an imbalance of cause and effect.

One must be willing at once to cause new data, statements, assumptions, considerations and to receive ideas, assumptions, considerations.

So great is the anxiety of a thetan to cause an effect that he closely approaches those things which can cause an effect upon him. Thus a thetan becomes trapped. On the face of it so few thetans. make causative data and so many receive data that it would seem, in view of the fact that a thetan can be touched only by his own consideration, that thetans are more anxious for effects than to be· cause, however this is not true in practice. In a game one seeks to. cause an effect and to receive no-effect.

It is learned under close experiment that there is nothing a thetan· actually disdains on an effect level. He pretends not to like or enjoy certain effects and protests against them but he knows very well that the mechanism of protest causes the effect to approach more closely as a general rule. This came about by his repeated failure in games. Insisting on no-effect for himself, he lost. Then he had to say he liked the effect.

The prevailing anxiety then is to be an effect, not to be a cause.

The entire subject of responsibility is a study of cause and effect in that a person who wants no responsibility is anxious to be an effect only and a person who can assume responsibility must also be willing to be causative.

A thetan can be swung into a "state of consideration " by observing that it is commonly held by others. This keeps him in the universe and this keeps him being effect.

Study, investigation, receiving education and similar activity are all effect activities and result in the assumption of less responsibility. Thus, while it is true that a thetan cannot actually get into trouble, he can, by agreeing with the current agreed upon thought in the universe where he finds himself, take a pattern of thinkingness which makes him less effective because he wishes to be an effect. If he feels he must gather all of his data from elsewhere, he is then the effect of knowledge the effect of universes and postulates and he tends to reduce his own ability to form or make knowledge.

In Scientology we can communicate in full these circumstances since we are only calling to attention the pattern which an individual already himself holds, thus we are not actually teaching him anything. We are only pointing out things he has already agreed with or himself caused.

It is only generally true that an individual is responsible for everything that happens to him. When an individual, wishing to cause many interesting effects, chooses to go into many universes or traps, he can become confused about what he is doing, where he is or what it is all about. Scientology points out that this can be seen or changed from a person's own view-point to bring about a change in his own condition.

As an example a thetan has come to "believe" that the right way to get along in life is to do just as father did. This is an invitation to being in father's universe. Later on he changes his mind about this but he finds himself still in father's universe and doesn't like it. He would be more effective, more capable if he were not now in father's universe. Customarily, in these unenlightened times, he waits for death to separate himself from the environment in which he finds himself and puts up with it until then. It is not necessary to do this now that we have Scientology. He can at any moment, given the proper steerage, vacate any trap in which he finds himself and begin again on a new series of considerations.

We cannot then talk about knowledge as a totality. It is a single datum. The thirst for knowledge would be the thirst for other thetan's postulates and would lead one to forget that he himself has been a party to the making of these postulates and that he himself had to follow a certain course in order to put himself in reach of other thetans' postulates.

(Translator's note: Lacking a proper English word for "causative thinking " the word " postulate " has been used in slight difference to its English definition. If there is a word in your language which means "self-impulsion" or "creation of a thought" use that instead of a " postulate".)

Because one is the effect of knowledge, the causing of data, considerations or "facts" to come into existence separates one in distance from being an effect, if one is very anxious to be an effect.

If this is his basic consideration, he will not take well to causing information to come into existence, but in order to get him out of the traps in which he finds himself, it is necessary to some degree that he does so.

Causing few barriers or traps the individual then loses control ·over barriers or traps, wishing to be no-effect. Of course he does lose control over barriers and traps otherwise he cannot be entrapped by them. The thing to do to free him from a trap is to find what parts of the trap he himself is willing to create, own, or have, or possess. This places the barriers (which can be spaces, energy movements, or obstacles) under his control and his postulating that he can have or possess this or that causes him to be willing to be or occupy the trap. The moment this occurs he is no longer in the trap, or even if he is still in it, to some degree he does not object to it and can leave it when he wishes.

Civilization and Savagery

The way to paralyze a nation entirely and to make it completely ungovernable would be to forbid education of any kind within its borders and to inculcate into every person within it the feeling that they must not receive any information from anybody about .anything. To make a nation governable it is necessary to hold a kindly view of education and to honour educative persons and measures. To conquer a land it is not necessarily efficient to overwhelm them with guns. Once this is done it is necessary to apply educative measures in order to bring about some sort of agreement .amongst the people themselves as well as between the conqueror and the subdued. Only in this way could one have a society, a civilization, or as we say in Scientology, a smoothly running game.

In other words two extremes could be reached. Neither one of which is desirable by the individual. The first extreme could be reached by emphasis only upon self-created data or information. This would bring about, not only a lack of interpersonal relations, but also an anxiety to have an effect which would, as it does in barbaric peoples, result in social cruelty unimaginable in a civilized nation. The other extreme would be to forbid in its entirety any self-created information and to condone only data or considerations generated by others than self. Here we would create an individual with no responsibility, so easily handled that he would be only a puppet.

Self-created data is then not a bad thing, neither is education, but one without the other to hold it in some balance will bring about a no-game condition or a no-civilization. Just as individuals can be seen by observing nations, so we see the African tribesman,. with his complete contempt for truth and his emphasis on brutality and savagery for others but not himself, is a no-civilization and we see at the other extreme, China slavishly dedica:ted to ancient scholars incapable of generating within herself sufficient rulers to· continue, without bloodshed, a nation.

We have noted the individual who must be the only one who can make a postulate·or command, whose authority is dearer to him than the comfort or state of millions that have suffered from such men (Napoleon, Hitler, Kaiser Wilhelm, Frederick of Prussia, Genghiz Khan, Attila). We have known, too, the scholar who has. studied himself into blindness and is the world's greatest authority on government or some such thing who yet cannot himself manage· his bank account or a dog with any certainty. Here we have in either case, a total imbalance. The world shaker is himself un-· willing to be any effect of any kind (and all the men named here were arrant personal cowards) and we have the opposite, a man who would not know what you were talking about if you told him to get an idea of his own.

We see another example of this in the fundamental laws of warfare. A body of troops, to be effective, must be able to attack and to defend. Its implements must be divided 50% for attack and 50% for defense. In other words even in a crude activity such as·. warfare, we find that no successful outcome is possible unless thetroops can devote half of their energies to attack and half of them to defense.

In the much broader view of life we discover on any dynamicthat success or a game or activity or life itself depends upon being willing to be cause as well as willing to be an effect. He who would give must be willing to receive. He who would receive must bewilling to give. When these tenets are violated the most fundamental principle of human relationships are violated and the result is a no-game-condition such as aberration, insanity, anti-socialness, criminality, inactivity, laziness, tiredness, mania, fanaticism and all· the other things against which men protest. But imbalances between cause and effect also enter randomities into the game of life and cannot be neglected in their potential for creating a game.

Any information is valuable to the degree that you can use it. In other words any information is valuable to the degree that you.. can make it yours. Scientology, of all the sciences, does not teach· you, it only reminds you for the information was yours in the first place. It is not only the science of life but it is an account of what: you were doing before you forgot what you were doing.