DMSH 1950 Book 3 Chapter 2

← Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950)

Release or Clear

The object of dianetic therapy is to bring about a release or a clear.

A release (noun) is an individual from whom major stress and anxiety have been removed by dianetic therapy.

A clear (noun) is an individual who, as a result of dianetic therapy, has neither active nor potential psycho-somatic illness or aberration.

To clear (verb) is to release all the physical pain and painful emotion from the life of an individual or, as in Political Dianetics — a society. The result of this will bring about persistence in the four dynamics, optimum analytical ability for the individual and, with that, all recall. The experience of his entire life is available to the clear and he has all his inherent mental ability and imagination free to use it. His physical vitality and health are markedly improved and all psycho-somatic illnesses have vanished and will not return. He has greater resistance to actual disease. And he is adaptable to and able to change his environment. He is not “adjusted”; he is dynamic. His ethical and moral standards are high, his ability to seek and experience pleasure is great. His personality is heightened and he is creative and constructive. It is not yet known how much longevity is added to a life in the process of clearing, but in view of the automatic rebalancing of the endocrine system, the lowered incidence of accident and the improvement of general physical tone, it is most certainly raised.

A release is an individual from whom have been released the current or chronic mental and physical difficulties and painful emotion. The value of a release, when compared to a clear, may not at first thought be considered great, but when one understands that a release is usually in excess of the contemporary norm in mental stability, it can be seen that the condition is not without great value.

As a standard of comparison, a clear is to the contemporary norm as the contemporary norm is to a contemporary institutional case. The margin is wide and it would be difficult to exaggerate it. A clear, for instance, has complete recall of everything which has ever happened to him or anything he has ever studied. He does mental computations, such as those of chess, for example, which a normal would do in a half an hour, in ten or fifteen seconds. He does not think “vocally” but spontaneously. There are no demon circuits in his mind except those which it might amuse him to set up — and break down again — to care for various approaches to living. He is entirely self-determined. And his creative imagination is high. He can do a swift study of anything within his intellectual capacity, which is inherent, and the study would be the equivalent to him of a year or two of training when he was “normal.” His vigor, persistence and tenacity to life are very much higher than anyone has thought possible.

The objection that it is dangerous to create too many clears in a society is a thoughtless one. The clear is rational. The acts which damage a society are irrational. That a handful of clears could probably handle any number of “normals” is within reason, but that the clear would handle them to their detriment is unreasonable. The more clears a society possessed the more chance that society would have to prosper. That a clear is unambitious is not proven out by scientific observation, for the curve of dwindling ambition follows the curve of reducing rationality; and those who have been cleared have proven the matter by reactivating all their skills toward goals they had once desired but had begun to consider unattainable when “norms.”* That a clear is in some degree separated from the “norm” is attributable to the gulf between their respective mental abilities, for he has achieved solutions and conclusions before the “norm” has begun to form an idea of what to conclude; this does not make a clear intolerable to the “norm,” for the clear has none of that superiority attitude which is actually a product of engrams. This is a quick glance at the state of being clear, but the state cannot be described; it has to be experienced to be appreciated.

A release is a somewhat variable quantity. Anyone well advanced on the road to clear is a release. There is no comparison between a clear and anything Man has before believed obtainable and there is no comparison between clearing and any therapy hitherto practiced. In the case of the release only is there a basis of comparison between dianetics and past therapies such as “psycho-analysis” and any other. A release can be effected in a few weeks. The resulting condition will be at least equivalent to that following two years of “psycho-analysis” with the difference that the release has a guarantee of permanent results and no guarantee of success has ever been made by “psycho-analysis.” A release does not relapse into any pattern which has been relieved.

These are the two goals of the dianetic auditor: clear and release. It is not known at this writing how long is the average time to raise the institutionally insane into the neurotic level: it has been done in two hours, it has been done in ten and in some cases it has required two hundred.*

The dianetic auditor should determine beforehand in any case whether he wishes to attempt a release or a clear. He can achieve either with anyone not organically insane (missing or seared portions of the brain bringing about insanity, mainly genetic or iatrogenic and relatively rare except in institutions). But he should make an estimate of the amount of time he can invest in any one person and regulate his intention accordingly and announce it to his patient. The two goals are slightly different. In a release one does not attempt entrance into phases of the case which will or may bring about a necessity of long work and gives his attention to the location and release of emotional charge. In clearing the auditor gives his attention to the location of the basic-basic engram, the discharge of emotion and the entire engram bank.

There is a third goal which could be considered a sub-head of a release.

This is an assist: it is done after injury, or illness following the injury, or illness just sustained, in order to promote more rapid recovery: to assist the body in its rehabilitation after injury or illness. This is specialized therapy which will probably be practiced commonly enough but is of primary benefit to the medical doctor who, with it, can save lives and speed healing by releasing the engram of that particular illness or injury, thus removing the various engram conceptions which the furtherance of the injury restimulates. Any dianetic auditor can practice this. The assist has about the same level of usefulness as a faith healing miracle which would work every time.

Estimations of the amount of time the case will require are difficult to attain with any accuracy greater than 50% and it should be understood by the patient that the time in therapy is variable. It depends in a measure upon the skill of the auditor, the number of unsuspected engrams never hitherto reactivated, and the amount of restimulation to which the patient is subject during therapy. Therefore the auditor should not be optimistic in estimating time but should make his patient understand that greater or lesser time may be consumed in the therapy.

Any person who is intelligent and possessed of average persistency and who is willing to read this book thoroughly should be able to become a dianetic auditor. When he has cleared two or three cases he will have learned far more and understood far more than is contained in this book, for there is nothing which develops an understanding of a machine like handling it in action. This is the instruction book, the machine in question is ready to hand wherever there are men. Contrary to superstition about the mind, it is almost impossible to permanently injure the mechanism. It can be done with an electric shock or a scalpel or an ice-pick, but it is almost impossible to do it with dianetic therapy.