An observation of the
preclear
An
article by L. Ron Hubbard, from
The Power of Simplicity lectures
If
you saw a thetan going down the boulevard
dragging behind him an old, bent-up bronze
wreath of some kind or another which clanged
and clanked, and would keep getting caught
on milestones and corners of things and
so on, you would say, "What you doing
with that wreath?"
Well, it's rather obvious;
it's a memento of his last funeral or something
like that. We could say it's just a token
or a substitute for the body he just lost.
We could say it's a lot of things. And we'd
say, "Hey, you don't need that wreath.
There's some much better items around if
you want to pick them up. As a matter of
fact, you could go pick up another body
if you wanted to."
He might do that. But
if he didn't, and if he didn't drop the
wreath and he just kept dragging it down,
complaining about how hard it was to get
on down the road, but all the time he was
trying to get on down the road the wreath
kept getting caught in the milestones, you
know? I mean
And you say, "Hey!
You know you're dragging a wreath?"
Funny part of it is,
you gave him a big explanation at first,
and you told him he didn't need it, and
you told him a lot of things; you were assuming
he knew he had a wreath. If you were to
say to him, "Hey. You know you're dragging
a wreath along behind you?"
Fellow is liable to say
"Nahh."
And you say, "Well,
look around."
And he'd say, "Where?
Where? I don't see any."
You'd say something must
be wrong with his perception, one way or
the other. Well, actually the truth of the
matter is there's probably something wrong
with you, because there's a Model-T Ford
he is also dragging along, but that's another
quarter of a mile behind him. And his attention
is so fixed on it and it won't run that
he's never noticed the wreath.
Well, just add that up
as a straight observation of a preclear.
I'll tell you a funny
story with regard to that. Processed a preclear
one time that had a missing ear. Ear was
totally missinggone. Zip. I assumed
the preclear knew all about this missing
ear. How stupid can an auditor get, see?
Wasn't getting anyplace on him at all. He
didn't seem to have anything else wrong
with him. He was doing all right. Had a
few freckles, but they're allowable. Finally
in desperation I said, "How did you
lose your ear?" This was the wrong
question. It didn't take me long to find
out it was the wrong question, either. Not
that he blew up. Not that he blew up, but
I had asked him how he lost it, not "Have
you got an ear?"
Now, you'd say
it was utterly impossible for an individual
to go around without an ear for a long time
and not know that he didn't have an ear.
This fellow knew all the time he didn't
have an ear, but he didn't know he didn't
have an ear, don't you see? And all of his
difficulties and so forth were surrounding
the incident of the ear, and in order to
get rid of those difficulties and forget
them, he had to forget that he didn't have
an ear, too. Don't you see?
L. Ron Hubbard
Excerpted from the
lecture SKULL GAZING
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