The Goal of Man

Right. The first page is already causing an issue. The long story short is that a line is drawn between the things that cause aberrations in a human being. On one side are the spiritual and on the other, the measurable, the factual. At the bottom of page one is the statement, "All factors necessary to the resolution of a science of the mind were found within the finite universe and were discovered, sensed, measured and experienced and became scientific truth." Measured by who? Who determined what factors were necessary? What of all the things that are on the other side of the line, like belief. This chapter is going to have to pull a bloody stunner later on if it wants me to take it as read that the spiritual plays no part in the goal of man or the survival of the species.

There was an excellent series of lines in, "The Flight of Dragons," which was concerned at the core thread of the story line, that man was choosing logic over magic and that the world of magic had to use the last of its power to place itself in a protected place away from man, but that it was always needed. The Green Wizard says, "There was a time between the waning age of enchantment and the dawning age of logic, when dragons flew the skies. Free and unencumbered. Look down there Gorbash, at the troubled world below us. All mankind is facing an epic choice, a world of magic or a world of science. Which shall it be?"

Carolinus - "I propose we create the last realm of magic. The magic realm. Where all enchanted things might retreat before their age ends. If we consolidate our powers there will be enough magic left to create such a place. Sealed off from the rest of the world by the mists of invisibility."

Omadon - "You would defeat science and logic with a foolish retirement village?"

Carolinus - "Not defeat, my brother, enhance. The world though it does not realise it, can not do without magic. For example; man hears of the dragons invulnerable skin and lo, he makes armour, battleships, tanks . A fairy flies and furiously jealous man himself defies gravity with machines he will call aeroplanes. A magician looks in to his crystal and sees and hears half way across the world. Ah, says man, if only it could be so; and centuries from now he conjurers up miracles but calls them radio and television. If man is to surmount the insurmountable there must always be magic to inspire him. The world needs magic. Magic can never die."

"Go, and you may never return to the magic realm. For even now the great dome of invisibility grows over our world to protect its sanctity for all time; and no one on the outside may enter its boundaries save for the length of a dream, or flash of an inspiration. But it will stay, through the years the centuries and the ages; a part of man for all time and whenever man needs magic, we will be here."

Contrast this with the line from Dianetics, "It is not a new thought that man is surviving. It is a new thought that man is motivated only by survival." This, I can not agree with. It may be the goal of a few, but not the whole planet. Survival is the continuation of the species. The goal of man is further from this; betterment of itself. Once man has sired the next generation and secured their survival, then what is left? There are those who's goal is greed; the collection and execution of power. There are those with their fingers upon the button of nuclear destruction. These men would think nothing of bringing chaos and death to the human species and the majority of creation and evolution on this planet. No; survival seems to be an afterthought.

To my mind, to ignore the soul in the equation of the human race is to cheapen our very existence.

So it is at this point that I am well out of sympathy with the books unsubstantiated claims. However, I move on.

"Once survival was isolated as the only dynamic of a life form which would explain all its activities, it was necessary to study further the action of survival." "The thrust of survival is away from death and toward immortality." Immortality is a singular; of the individual person and not the species. Survival can be taken as one of two meanings, either of the species of the individual. The title of the chapter is of the species. The two can't cross in this without repercussions in muddying the waters.

This chapter crosses the definitions of the individual and the species so many times that it doesn't make sense.

Next up, The Four Dynamics. Hopefully we'll start to get to the definition of what the practice of dyanetics actually is; there are people out there who are practising it and hold it as key in changing their lives, and these people seem to be honest and hold kind hearts so there has to be something beyond these initial, confusing chapters.