Volume 9, Issue 10, page 9

body of experience in terms of yourself, ana
not some abstruse word which contains only one
or two meanings and a couple of experiences.

You will note that there is quite a little
difference between simple meditation and the
mantram . While we are speaking of mantrams , I
might mention their use as magic, not for you
to practice, but in order that you can see the
method. The magician takes a picture and makes
up a single phrase about it, preferably, as in
our exercise, a phrase which can be said in
one breath. He puts the mental picture out in
front of him and keeps it there as he breathes
the phrase , and at the same time he breathes
energy into the picture, putting the energy of
his breath and his purpose into it, bringing it
into realization. He concentrates in this manner for three or four hours. This is the full
use of the mantram, and a form of magic, sometimes called the use of prayer. I t is the
strongest form of mental power which an individual can project or employ, and it should
never be used lightly.

These first two are individual techniques
which one person working alone can use. Now,
we have a couple of team techniques which require assistance.

There is a technique called "lock scanning"
put out in Dianetics for the same purpose of
bringing the mind under control and to keep it
from milling. This cannot be done alone. It
requires an operator to drive the technique.
The subject picks a topic in which he has several experiences, for.example, times when father or mother were angry with him, or times
when he was successful, and goes back to the
earliest experience of the kind he can remember
easily. From there he moves up again to present time, briefly touching in chronological
order all the other similar incidents which
come to mind. It is not necessary to examine
the incidents in detail; they are run thru in
chronological order if possible, and the mind
is just flicked thru them. When the subject
has come all the way back to the present, he
says, "Now!" or "Done!", or smiles at the operator, and the operator directs him, "Go back
to the beginning and do it again. Find the
first one. Have you got it? Now, come up to
present time, scanning each of these as you go ,
looking at each of them. All right, are you in
present time? Now, go back and find the first
one. Have you got it? Now, come up to present
time." This should be done 50, 100, 200 times.
Occasionally the operator should ask, "Are
there any earlier incidents of this type which
you can recall?"
As the scanning proceeds, old incidents
will fall out and new ones turn up. Eventually
the aim is speed. "All right, now do it again
.. and again... and again... and again." I t
should be possible for an individual who is
well drilled in this technique to handle as
many as a thousand incidents between two of
these "agains". That is really high speed;
most will find it top speed or perhaps excessive. Occasionally you will find somebody who
handles the stuff in blocks -- and that's all
right, too. In such a case , the operator has
him consider it repeatedly. "Put it away...
Consider it... Put it away." In other words,
"Look at it...Now look at present time...Look
at the stuff...Now be in present time...Look at
the stuff... Be in present time."
Here is another technique for team use: The
operator takes a general topic, such as "cars"
or "trees", and directs the subject: "Think
about cars...All right, now think about wheels
...Now stop thinking about cars... Now think
about trees... Think about leaves on trees...
Now stop thinking about trees." This is kept up
until the subject can ston thinking about
something and suspend the formulation of images
in his mind. The individual should control his
own mind space. Thoughts or pictures should not
go drifting across there.

Of these techniques, the most useful are
the single word or repeater technique and the
lock scanning. Both of these will brine about
radical changes in the mind structure if they
are used extensively. The lock scanning in
particular will eliminate what is sometimes
called "cognition" , mulling over an idea for
hour after hour after hour. Any data which
exists in the mind should be instantaneously
available to the individual, and drill on
lock scanning cuts out the time lag, the communication lag between "requests for information from my mind" and "information furnished".
So will the single word technique if properly
done in large quantities.

Communication lag is an engineering concept
borrowed by Dianeticists and some others to
apply to people. In this use it is the time
between a question presented and the arrival
of a usable, meaningful, non-automatic answer.
This definition of course does not apply to
questions such as, "Good day! How are you?"
because the automatic answer is, "I'm fine."
and you don't deserve another answer. The
question doesn't require one.

One of the more useful achievements in
learning to process people is to understand
the communication lag and how it operates. An
individual who has a heavy load, a lot of Psychic charge or trauma on a subject, will almost always exhibit a communication lag on it.
If you ask him, for instance, "How do you feel
about your mother?" he might answer, " Hm-m-m.
Oh, I don't know. Oh, she's kind of funny.. .
Let me see, now... Oh, just about like anybody
else does, I guess." Actually, all of this is
communication lag. You haven't got an answer
yet. Communication lag is an important sign to
recognize.

Of course, there are questions which have
the answer built into them, the yes-or-no type,
and the social questions which demand conventional answers. If somebody gives you a nonconventional answer, this doesn't imply that
his communication is any better than anyone
else's. I t is more likely to imply that he
wants more attention than somebody else.

Purpose of these exercises is to stop the
milling of the mind, to keep it from making
pictures which you do not intend to make, to
keep it from being invaded by thoughts or images which don't belong there, to insure that
you own the space of your mind. It is surprising how many people do not. You have often
heard someone say, "I can't help thinking
about this song," or "You know, this bothers
me -- it irritates me -- and I can't help it." He
is telling you that he doesn't own the space
of his mind. He has given someone else authority and control over his area. You should be
able to blank anything out of your mind, your
own thoughts or anybody else's, if the occasion demands. Just as you should be able to get
rid of tension in the body, and of emotion,
you should be able to shut down the thinking
machine.

A detector called an electropsychometer was
built to measure reaction time and emotional
reaction for people in Dianetics, and with
this it was found that the subject would react
in terms of sweat glands in his hands to some(PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 12)
MARCH, 1963 The ABERREE 9