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April 1997 IVy 31 29
Book News:
TROM: A Better Bridge1?
by
Frank Gordon,
USA
At the end
of Dianetics: MSMH,
Hubbard implores
us: "For God's sake, get busy and build a better
bridge!" To me, such a bridge would include a
more direct connection between the philosophical
principles of Hubbard's Scientology and their
application. Dennis Stephens in
TROM: The
Resolution o f Mind: A Games Manual
has
achieved this more direct connection.
Background
Stephens' major process is centered around
knowing. On page 10 of
TR O M
he lists the
many combinations of postulate pairs involving
know: must know, must be known, mustn't
know, and must not be known, as either games
or overwhelms. This focuses directly on what
Scientology is all about, knowing about knowing,
or science of knowledge,
{Tech Diet
1979, p.370
and
Scn 8-80,
p.8).
Dennis also focuses just as directly on games,
another key basic.
Hubbard on games
In
Scn: A New Slant on Life,
Ron discusses "The
Reason Why," and the answer is to have a game.
Thus: "Life is a game. A game consists of freedom,
barriers and purposes." p.38.
The only clear-cut process Hubbard gave for
games appears in
Dianetics 55
on p.158 as a
One-Shot clear process:
"Having established the fact that an auditing
session is in progress, and established some
slight communication with the preclear (note:
slyly implying that this is a weak spot with
many auditors), the auditor says, 'Invent a
game.' When the communication lag on this is
flat the auditor then uses the command,
'Mock up somebody else inventing a game.'
It is a workable process, it does function,
it is fast, but...it has the frailty of the ability
of the auditor. It has the frailty of failing
when a two-way communication is not
maintained with the preclear..."
Ron then noted in
Tech Vol II,
p.417:
"It is evidently true that no part of games is
processable and the entering into games is not
necessarily therapeutic, except this idea of
overwhelming things. This process is What
would you permit to overwhelm?' What would
you permit to be overwhelmed?""
So at this point, it appeared that games could
not be processed directly.
Dennis Stephens on games
In
TROM,
under Theory, p.7, Dennis approaches
games at the postulate level:
"Conflicting postulates are called a game.
The purpose of a game is to have fun. All
conflicting postulates are essentially a game...
Due to contagion with opposing postulates all
games tend to reduce the ability of the being
to postulate.
"...all games are essentially contests in con-
viction, and all failure is basically postulate
failure (note: an overwhelm, either as moti-
vator or overt).
"It is a rule of all games, that intentionally
lowering one's ability in order to be more
evenly matched with the opponent leadsinevitably to the state of an en- forced loss of the game...Thus the paradox of all games: a. All games are played for fun, b. To always win is no fun, and c. To invite a loss is to eventually have a loss enforced upon one. Thus, eventual failure is the end result of all games." Dennis then discusses the assignment of responsi- bility, blame and guilt by the loser at end of a game. This parallels the Service Facsimile as an analytical game tactic. He also notes that treating GPMs formerly as reactive led to many difficul- ties, and that game postulates are analytical. Other views of games are given in: "Can Games be Processed Directly?" IVy 9, p.29; Games People Play by Eric Berne, and Scripts People Live by Claude Steiner. The repair of importance There is an interesting parallel between Dennis's Repair of Importance (RI) and Hubbard's Repair or Remedy of Havingness, where Ron's definition of importance in the Tech Diet is: "Importance, is mass. In thinkingness when you say importance, you mean mass." Hubbard noted "The Importance of Havingness" (PAB 72, Tech Vol II, p.371), and stated that, "Without the repair and remedy of havingness no real gains become apparent." He also notes that any process will run better if interspersed with havingness, which parallels the use of RI. An early definition of havingness was: "Havingness is that which permits the expe- rience of mass and pressure." And his final definition: "The concept of being able to reach" might also be expressed as: "The concept of being able to experience, or permitting oneself to experience." Why doesn't Dennis use "havingness" instead of importance? Probably to emphasize the "mustness" of anything important. The "mustness" which makes games compulsive. Using RI(3) to repair importance, "Create an importance," while emphasizing the issue of "mustness" between two termi- nals seems workable and echoes Ron's "Invent a game" as an all the way process in Dianetics 55. Examples of mock-ups used to repair importance might be: a teacher impress- ing a child with the importance of knowing the capital of Denmark; or a mother berating her son about the importance of wearing his rubbers1. This can help to improve awareness of any com- pulsive "mustness" elements in one's life. Timebreaking In "The Creation of T R O M " (IVy 17, p.23), Dennis tells about how he developed TROM, and that he devised timebreaking by using Hubbard's concept that mental automaticities can be brought under control by doing them consciously. Thus, when working with postulates like "must know," if a past incident pops up automatically, it is not run as a lock or engram, but the A=A=A is broken by differentiating the past incident from the present; much as in the early process of comparing and differentiating between two objects. Complementary postulates Dennis has a lot of cautions, so in order not to get in over my head, I've begun exploring his approach with complementary postulate pairs. He says complementary postulates reduce game-playing compulsions and increase affinity, but they can include overwhelm phenomena where they have resulted from force or undue influence. To avoid this, I can prefix these complementary postulate pairs with "the desire to, willing to, permitting oneself to, feeling free to, etc." I found using the pair "know and to be known" relaxing, with an immediate sense of release. This, and also the pair "desire to know and the desire to be known" were fun. On the subject of havingness, I used the postulate pair: "willing to have (for self) with the object (the other) willing to be had." Nice! Also the pairing of "to have" and "to be had" may be applicable to various hav- ingness processes. E.g., "Look around the room and find something you could (or are willing to) have", as the Self-Determined postulate seems to work better for me if I put in the Pan-Determined postulate "could (or is will- ing to) be had," on the other end of the line. Ron's material on GPMs was so thoroughly oppositional, that thinking about postulate pairs like "to know and to be known" or "to have and to be had" is refreshing. The CDEI scale Dennis uses "must" or "must not" which corre- spond to "enforce" and "inhibit" in the CDEI (curious, desire, enforce, inhibit) scale. Since the goal of TROM is to convert compulsive "must" games into voluntary enjoyable ones, I've explored the possibility of expanding the usage of the CDEI scale, using curious as "desiring to know (or to have) paired with desiring to be known (or to be had)," and with "desiring to not-know or not-have" being a kind of "cultivated indifference." And perhaps between "enforced" and "inhibited," one can assume a balance point or free area, with the concepts of "permitting oneself to, freedom to, may, can, etc." which can be combined with "know or have." Dennis gives a list of junior packages which have been found to be erasable: to create, to love, to admire, to enhance, to help, to feel, to control, to own, to have, to eat, to sex; with complementary ones as: to be created, to be felt, to be sexed, etc. Summary In my opinion, Dennis has taken a very direct approach to using the key elements of Scientology: knowing how to know, living as a game, becoming responsible and assigning importances. He has also expanded the concept of the Sendee Facsimile (a game tactic) with his thoughts about blame (the assignment of wrongness) and guilt (accepted blame), along with shame (guilt exposed) and ridicule (the exposure of guilt). This area with its many charges and counter-charges may provide another entering wedge into ongoing games.
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