Volume 3, Issue 7, page 3

Pott lfdyust, f7 tAem Reuo& Agaitut
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Ai FEW MONTHS ago, I decided to review th
al case histories of all the pre-clears
have worked with in the past six years.
I found a situation that astonished me.
Consistent throughout these case histories
were strongly expressed feelings of restriction—of being held down, held back, repressed,
stopped. And so I found myself very busy trying to determine just how free a human bein
may feel himself to be, and how legitimate ar
our feelings of restriction on that freedom.

Most people seem to feel that it is impossible for a human being to be really free.
Talk to them of freedom and they begin t
think in terms of the soul, of death, or of th
thetan; they can think of themselves being entirely free out in space, in some other world,
in some other time -- anywhere, so long as it is
not here and now.

Or perhaps the individual will look at th
animal world, and you'll suddenly find your
pre-clear is a big cat stalking through th
jungle, or he's a bird, or a bee, or even
fish swimming freely through the water. But
ask them to think of being free in this life,
this body, and they are immediately in difficulties.

From the cradle to the grave we seem to be
concerned with fighting restrictions, or els
we cease to fight. We go down in apathy and
we become so restricted that the mere
thought of freedom causes panic, as it did to
the man who had spent 25 years in prison and
one day was set free. When the doors
clanged shut behind him, he stood for a moment,
then turned and began pounding on the doors,
begging to be allowed back in.

I have said we fight restriction from the
cradle to the grave. Actually, we seem concerned with freedom from a much earlier age.

In Dianetic processing, when you are dealing with the sperm and ovum, you 11 very often
find that there is a tremendous feeling o
restriction on the part of both sperm and o
just prior to orgasm, sometimes an almost panicky need to get free, and the feeling of release and freedom that follows is of equal
magnitude. This usually continues until the
sperm and ovum unite, and at that point the
sperm may lose all sense of freedom in the
feeling of entrapment. Now, in running the
sperm-ovum sequence, you may be sure these
feelings of restriction and entrapment are environmental. They should be run until bo
sperm and ovum have a strong feeling of energy
and freedom.

The ovum goes on, reaches the uterus, and
attaches itself to the'wall, and at that point
a reversal takes place. At this moment, to be
free would be non-survival, for it is a parasite, living off its host, needing to cling
until it develops to the point where it need
cling no longer.

Psychologists say that one of the basic
fears of human beings is the fear of falling.
I doubt if many of them ever have connected
that "late life fear with the fact that the
embryo spends its time suspended from the wall
of the uterus, subject constantly to a swaying
movement, jostled and jerked with every random
movement mother makes, and if the movement becomes too violent, detachment and death would
result.

Just prior to birth, again comes the feel...
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ing of entrapment, a need to be free. Oddly
enough, sometimes there is a reversal here and
we find the baby not wanting to be born. I
have run several such cases—10-month babies
who computed that there was safety only in the
womb. It's common enough to meet people who in
later life have developed a desire to return
to the uterus, but these are cases that never
wanted to leave it in the first place. From
the start they consider the world dangerous
and have no desire to be "out on their own".

Sometimes there is an enforced holding back
if environmental conditions are not right f o r
the birth. I know of one case where the doctor
was away on a fishing trip and he left orders
that the baby not be born until he returned;
also that the mother not be given any drugs.
At the time I was greatly concerned about the
mother and the pain she was suffering. Now I
find myself wondering about the effect on the
child -- mother probably wonders why her child
is so rebellious and angry, hating restriction
or confinement.

Where conditions are right, the baby is
eagerly looking forward to freedom. It wants
more room for growth. Then it is expelled, and
almost immediately it receives what, to it, is
pretty rough handling and again there come
feelings of restriction.

If you will look over the pre-natal situation, you will see that I have described a
condition where almost alternatingly freedom
and restriction have meant survival, and also
a situation that is wide-open for later restimulation.

People seem to require barriers to reassure
them. I believe this is so because of the prenatal. In other words, the dual need for freedom and restriction begins on the cellular
level. The restrictions of the uterus are prosurvival, so we continue thinking of restrictions tions as pro-survival.

On the physical level this is true to at
least some extent. Gravity is a restricting
force, but we cannot do without it. As human
beings, we are restricted to our own element.
We cannot stay under water as a fish does, we
cannot fly as a bird does, or a bee. But from
what I know of the birds and the bees, there
is little to envy. Human beings are possessed
of cerebral power and can, at least potentially, circumvent his restrictions. Cars, trains,
planes, ships, radio, television, X-rays, telephones, ephones, telegraph, writing, printing—everything thing that increases our means of communication, our perceptics, our ability to project
our thoughts, increases our space and freedom.

There is one thing that man, in his seeking
to be free, has discovered and developed -- he
has a mind, he can think. This ability puts
him far ahead of any other known life form,
because, so far as we know, other forms can
think only to a very limited degree, if at all.

But this ability, while it frees, also restricts. With the increased ability to think
came a greater awareness. He was able to think
of the past and to think of the future. He became able to compare, compute, evaluate, and
correlate. And he became aware of things outside his immediate environment.

Thinking is a social phenomenon. George,
the wolf boy, did no more thinking" than did
the wolves with whom he lived. And we think
according to our time and snace -- the age and