It starts well ... "Disease is contagious. Germs, travelling from one individual to another, wander through an entire society, respecting none until stopped by such things as sulfa or penicillin"
Then, it makes another unfounded statement .. "Aberration are contagious. Like germs they respect none and carry forward from individual to individual, from parents to child, respecting none until they re stopped by dianetics."
As children, part of our education is on the conditions of germs, we learn about penicillin; this is text book stuff. The first paragraph is automatically supported by the knowledge that the reader will probably already have and trust. The second paragraph, however, has no such automatic support and to this point in the book there is still no firm detail or proof of how dianetics is supposed to achieve this. If I was being cynical, I would believe that there is a concious attempt for the credibility of the first paragraph to be used to support the (to this point) unfounded assertions of the second.
The contagion of aberrations requires thought. On page 61 we receive the definition of an aberration - "Aberrations, under which is included all deranged or irrational behaviour, are caused by engrams. They are stimulus-response, pro- and contrasurvival." Thus from the readings to this point it can only be concluded that an aberration is not, in itself, contagious. Rather, the engram in an individual causes aberrations which affect a persons behaviour and this behaviour then causes engrams to be created in others and these engrams create aberrations in the, "infected," individual. That makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is the definition of an engram also on 61 that states, "The engram is the single source of aberrations and psychosomatic ills. Moments of 'unconsciousness' where the analytical mind is attenuated in greater or lesser degree are the only moments when engrams can be received"
It doesn't make sense until you evaluate that a moment of "unconsciousness" isn't actually being flat out on an operating theatre table; back to page 61 we go ... "Moments of 'unconsciousness' when the analytical mind is attenuated in greater or lesser degree, are the only moments when engrams can be received."
So, if you were angry for some reason and bump in to me, then the actual result of this on me will be that if my guard is down, I could also become angry at being treated in that way. If I were aware of the boundaries I might thus be angry with you, but I wouldn't carry that anger forward in my dealings with others; I would keep it in its place.
I think I'm getting the hang of this.
So when statements come along the likes of, "But it does mean that it is utterly inevitable that aberrated parents will in some way aberrate their children" what it means is that aberrated parents will cause engrams in their children. Why were the words messed up here?
There comes a problem with the following, however, "If some society believed that fish-eating brought on leprosy it is quite certain that this false datum would find its way into engrams and sooner or later someone would develop a leprosy-like disease after having eaten fish."
Much of society has continued on the basis of data. I believe I might have penned before on the fact that much of mans history and discoveries have, through the ages, been disproven and replaced on a number of occasions. We also have the realms of positive reinforcement cloudying the water here ... one person performing remote reiki on peoples pets believing that it works; the partner asks about the pets that died but this being brushed off by the individual, using only the cases where the animals recovered as proof that reiki worked to reinforce their own belief that reiki works.
The critical thing here is that the power of the mind in affecting the body is still, at this point, in the realms of anecdotal evidence as we still have no scientific research to back this up. Maintaining a good sense of self and being able to maintain a focus on reality is the purpose of many other, and in some cases many times older, teachings. Dianetics doesn't actually have a monopoly on this result. One of my favourites is, "Lack of planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine." which is again demonstrating the barrier between one person having issues and not letting them affect me.
The issue of the false datum about fish does not answer the questions of how many per head of population would be affected. Also, how many would only believe that they had the disease and that that they had symptoms, but actually have no disease or demonstratable symptoms of any relation in physical reality?
Unfortunately, the book takes another odd turn, "Primitive societies, being subject to much mailing by the elements, have many more occasions for injury than civilised societies. Further, such primitive societies are alive with false data. Further, their practice of medicine and mental healing is on a very aberrative level by itself."
To any society, including ours, data is only as true as we have the proof and evidence to substantiate the claims. Once the proof and evidence is up to a certain high standard it is said to be scientific proof. This is something which the book itself has failed to produce.
The practices of medicines in primitive societies tends to be of the earth. Even our advanced society has found itself turning against our own synthetic concoctions for the more mundane infections and are returning to solutions which come from nature. True, a primitive society won't have a sterilised surgical environment and anaesthetics, and thus one of their tribe suffering a bad mauling or badly broken leg, will have a low chance of survival.
As to how false data involves in this, however, I am not so sure. Also in our modern society with car accidents, kitchen knife accidents, fire hazards, chemical burns, aircraft safety and all the rest of it; I actually believe that if we call it by the numbers, the primitive societies have it better in terms of accidents suffered.
It could easily be taken, therefore, that primitive societies even though they have false data; don't know that this data is false and therefore continue on because their belief in the data being true results in no engrams and thus no aberrations as a result of this belief. Similarly, if we conclude that our own society has progressed from that path but that there are still things we do not know, then our own advanced society is actually in that very stage ourselves ... our problem is that we don't know that the false data is ... in fact ... false. Therefore we consider ourselves to be unaberrated. It it only when we later recognise data as being false that we can suffer aberrations as a result.
Sadly, the book further degenerates in to colourful examples, but these lead to something which I regard as a philosophical gem...
"A society which practices punishment of any kind against any of its members is carrying on a contagion of aberration. The society has a social engram, society size, which says punishment is necessary. Punishment is meted. The jails and institutions full. And then one day some portion of the society, depressed in to zone 1 by a government's freedom with government engrams, jumps up and wipes the government out. And a new set of aberrations is formed from the violence attending the destruction. Violent revolutions never win because they begin this cycle of aberration. A society filled with aberees may feel it necessary to punish. There has been no remedy other than punishment. The provision of a remedy for unsocial conduct by members of the group is of more than passing interest to a government for a continuance of its own corporal practices; adding these to the continuing aberrations of the past seriously depresses the survival potential of that government and will someday cause that government to fall. After many governments so fall, its people, too, perish from this Earth."
To a fair degree, it is just like reading Ghandi all over again, only in different words. This is not new thought process here ... but it is symbolic and very telling of the state of the human being, that despite this recognisable knowledge and proof existing of its practice ... that society continues to follow the path of violence and dismisses any non-violent solutions because they do not have the same entertainment value that violence carries.
The chapter finished by focusing on a clear person doing something that needs to be done; indeed what is written appears to rely on a clear having such a nature of person. However, even if there was a planet full of cleared people who would naturally behave in such a manner, there are plenty of other elements on the planet which are perfectly easily capable of entering engrams in to the clear. I have already commented on how difficult it is for the clear to remain so. It only takes a bad hair day and that is the end of that. We are human.
As of yet, there is nothing presented which takes account of that, rather unfortunate, fact.
Prenatal Experience and Birth
We have, here, a repetition of what has become the massive theme of this book; statements which proclaim themselves to be fact and born as the result of research but no references are made to substantiate them.
Among the issues that I am having is this section on narcosynthesis... "A shot of sodium pentothal is given intravenously to the patient and he is asked to count backwards. Shortly he stops counting at which the injection is also stopped. The patient is now in a sate of 'deep sleep.' That this is not sleep seems to have missed both narcosynthesists and hypnotists. It is actually a depression on the awareness of an individual so that those attention units which remain behind the curtain of his reactive bank can be reached directly."
My problem with it is thus ... if hypnotists had missed the fact that this state was a depression on the awareness of the individual ... then what the fuck are they putting the person under for, if not to induce this state; where the foreground conciousness could be bypased. What would then be the purpose of putting the patient in this state? Or also the other side of that question, what did the hypnotists think they WERE doing and what were they trying to achieve?
You can see how, for me, none of this hangs together very well.
Even to this degree, you must believe in reincarnation and that we have all lived past lives and carry that experience and memory with us.
While reincarnation has not been disproved and is regarded as a valid part of many peoples beliefs, its supporters still have not answered successfully questions which I hold to be quite important...
*) How is it that many people that have been regressed, have claimed to be someone famous from history, such as Napoleon or Cleopatra, while still being alive together. It stands to reason that only one person alive at any one time, can legitimately claim to have been that person in a previous life time, and that no one else can validly make that claim until this person is, themselves, passed over. Not only that, but it should also follow that the new claimant must have not only memories of their lives as said historical figure, but also have memories of the previous person, themselves. This has not really been solidly answered.
*) How is it that a population expansion is generating new souls? If they are coming from other organisms such as plants, insects or other such, then why is the incident of regression accounts as non-human species so low?
- to that last point, in 1920 the global population was estimated at 2,000 million people. Today it is more than 6,000 million. In theory, two out of every three people being regressed to 1920 should have memories of being something other than a human being. If you go back to 1800 it was estimated as 1,000 million; five out of every six people regressed to this point should have been something other than human. None of the studies/accounts that I have read bear this out.
While I don't, personally, write off reincarnation as a valid belief, the argument and evidence for it is actually quite weak.
Thus, as a chapter of unsubstantiated statement which relies to a degree on the unsubstantiated statement before it; this is coming to be a castle of sand built on a foundation of sand. Even the following has a serious problem ... "Dianetics, as a study of function and the science of mind, does not need any postulate concerning structure, however. The only test is whether or not a fact works. If it does work and can be used, it is a scientific fact."
The statement is tantamount to saying that dianetics does not need proof that it works; that it works is proof enough. However, it is lack of study that has plagued the human endeavour from the word go and numerous things which have been the subject of so much study and effort have been proven to be wrong later on; sometimes the same subjects numerous times; that it is essential that proper scrutiny is given.
If a fact works, it may only work under certain circumstances and therefore if there is an exception to a rule then there is no rule. back to the drawing table you go and do more research to improve the understanding of the circumstances and engineering involved.
Ergo, even if a fact works, it can not be considered to be a scientific fact unless it has gone through considerable process. It is akin to a one size fits all policy which is actually worryingly lacking detail and ... you guessed it ... very worryingly lacking in research, reference and evidence. Merely stating that research has proved something actually means nothing in this context unless the research is referenced and made as available to the reader as the work itself.
Something can be stated as a believable fact by an individual; even by an organisation ... but not a scientific fact until considerable process and peer reviewed process has been undergone.
Pages 189 to 192 have to be read to be believed, but the circumstances used to try and convey the point that is trying to be made here are certainly hard to swallow.
It closes with this, "All these things are scientific facts, tested and re-checked and tested again. And with them can be produced a Clear, on whom our racial future depends." WHAT scientific facts? WHAT testing? WHAT checking? There is less baloney in an Italian sausage factory.
Apologies to the open minded reader, but this is genuinely how I feel at the closure of this chapter. It is unfortunate to be making this conclusion when reviewing a work by L.Ron Hubbard, but this is coming across like a science fiction work in which the reader is actually being asked to believe all the futuristic devices and social protocols therein described, as being facts in the present, as written. No proof, no references, no research, no nothing.
Among the issues that I am having is this section on narcosynthesis... "A shot of sodium pentothal is given intravenously to the patient and he is asked to count backwards. Shortly he stops counting at which the injection is also stopped. The patient is now in a sate of 'deep sleep.' That this is not sleep seems to have missed both narcosynthesists and hypnotists. It is actually a depression on the awareness of an individual so that those attention units which remain behind the curtain of his reactive bank can be reached directly."
My problem with it is thus ... if hypnotists had missed the fact that this state was a depression on the awareness of the individual ... then what the fuck are they putting the person under for, if not to induce this state; where the foreground conciousness could be bypased. What would then be the purpose of putting the patient in this state? Or also the other side of that question, what did the hypnotists think they WERE doing and what were they trying to achieve?
You can see how, for me, none of this hangs together very well.
Even to this degree, you must believe in reincarnation and that we have all lived past lives and carry that experience and memory with us.
While reincarnation has not been disproved and is regarded as a valid part of many peoples beliefs, its supporters still have not answered successfully questions which I hold to be quite important...
*) How is it that many people that have been regressed, have claimed to be someone famous from history, such as Napoleon or Cleopatra, while still being alive together. It stands to reason that only one person alive at any one time, can legitimately claim to have been that person in a previous life time, and that no one else can validly make that claim until this person is, themselves, passed over. Not only that, but it should also follow that the new claimant must have not only memories of their lives as said historical figure, but also have memories of the previous person, themselves. This has not really been solidly answered.
*) How is it that a population expansion is generating new souls? If they are coming from other organisms such as plants, insects or other such, then why is the incident of regression accounts as non-human species so low?
- to that last point, in 1920 the global population was estimated at 2,000 million people. Today it is more than 6,000 million. In theory, two out of every three people being regressed to 1920 should have memories of being something other than a human being. If you go back to 1800 it was estimated as 1,000 million; five out of every six people regressed to this point should have been something other than human. None of the studies/accounts that I have read bear this out.
While I don't, personally, write off reincarnation as a valid belief, the argument and evidence for it is actually quite weak.
Thus, as a chapter of unsubstantiated statement which relies to a degree on the unsubstantiated statement before it; this is coming to be a castle of sand built on a foundation of sand. Even the following has a serious problem ... "Dianetics, as a study of function and the science of mind, does not need any postulate concerning structure, however. The only test is whether or not a fact works. If it does work and can be used, it is a scientific fact."
The statement is tantamount to saying that dianetics does not need proof that it works; that it works is proof enough. However, it is lack of study that has plagued the human endeavour from the word go and numerous things which have been the subject of so much study and effort have been proven to be wrong later on; sometimes the same subjects numerous times; that it is essential that proper scrutiny is given.
If a fact works, it may only work under certain circumstances and therefore if there is an exception to a rule then there is no rule. back to the drawing table you go and do more research to improve the understanding of the circumstances and engineering involved.
Ergo, even if a fact works, it can not be considered to be a scientific fact unless it has gone through considerable process. It is akin to a one size fits all policy which is actually worryingly lacking detail and ... you guessed it ... very worryingly lacking in research, reference and evidence. Merely stating that research has proved something actually means nothing in this context unless the research is referenced and made as available to the reader as the work itself.
Something can be stated as a believable fact by an individual; even by an organisation ... but not a scientific fact until considerable process and peer reviewed process has been undergone.
Pages 189 to 192 have to be read to be believed, but the circumstances used to try and convey the point that is trying to be made here are certainly hard to swallow.
It closes with this, "All these things are scientific facts, tested and re-checked and tested again. And with them can be produced a Clear, on whom our racial future depends." WHAT scientific facts? WHAT testing? WHAT checking? There is less baloney in an Italian sausage factory.
Apologies to the open minded reader, but this is genuinely how I feel at the closure of this chapter. It is unfortunate to be making this conclusion when reviewing a work by L.Ron Hubbard, but this is coming across like a science fiction work in which the reader is actually being asked to believe all the futuristic devices and social protocols therein described, as being facts in the present, as written. No proof, no references, no research, no nothing.
Emotion and the Dynamics
This section appears at the outset to be returning to the dynamics and zones with respect to emotions and the minds control over them. It is, however, where the book is trying to draw some stark lines.
"Emotion seems to be inextricably connected up with the actual force of life. That there is a life force no engineer could doubt. Man and medicine usually look at the pitcher and forget that the pitcher is only there to hold milk and that the milk is the important quantity." The first printing of this book was 1993 so it is hard to think that the book could have been created without the knowledge that the fields of medicine have been aware of bedside manner for some considerable time. That the very fact that even I am aware, and voluntarily chose the comparator of the patient who has lost the will to live, must say something for a widespread acceptance and awareness of the milk within the pitcher.
If there is one thing coming clear from all this, it is that it is possible for someone to achieve the state of being clear and not even come close to dianetics. It is entirely possible for a person to be perfectly at ease with themselves, their lives and be at balance and not have even read this book. Also, that clear is, in itself, a transient state; not one which is achieved and then you move on; it is a very precarious state and unless you lived in a bubble, I dare say that an event could move someone from clear by the very next day. Indeed it could be possible to consider that even being IN a bubble could move you downwards from being clear.
I think that is an important concept for me to have got straight in my head.
The chapter itself, though, attempts to explain these things through a number of dramatic examples and required me to re-read them before eventually concluding that they did not actually draw a conclusion.
The chapter finished with the emotion of laughter, which it describes as not actually an emotion but a relief from emotions. That is, actually, laudable and has considerable anecdotal history behind it.
"Emotion seems to be inextricably connected up with the actual force of life. That there is a life force no engineer could doubt. Man and medicine usually look at the pitcher and forget that the pitcher is only there to hold milk and that the milk is the important quantity." The first printing of this book was 1993 so it is hard to think that the book could have been created without the knowledge that the fields of medicine have been aware of bedside manner for some considerable time. That the very fact that even I am aware, and voluntarily chose the comparator of the patient who has lost the will to live, must say something for a widespread acceptance and awareness of the milk within the pitcher.
If there is one thing coming clear from all this, it is that it is possible for someone to achieve the state of being clear and not even come close to dianetics. It is entirely possible for a person to be perfectly at ease with themselves, their lives and be at balance and not have even read this book. Also, that clear is, in itself, a transient state; not one which is achieved and then you move on; it is a very precarious state and unless you lived in a bubble, I dare say that an event could move someone from clear by the very next day. Indeed it could be possible to consider that even being IN a bubble could move you downwards from being clear.
I think that is an important concept for me to have got straight in my head.
The chapter itself, though, attempts to explain these things through a number of dramatic examples and required me to re-read them before eventually concluding that they did not actually draw a conclusion.
The chapter finished with the emotion of laughter, which it describes as not actually an emotion but a relief from emotions. That is, actually, laudable and has considerable anecdotal history behind it.
Psychosomatic Illness
It has taken me quite some time to pick up this book again. The disappointment of journeying a fifth of its pages and not picking up any solid results caused me to rethink why I was spending my time reading it. I remembered that I'm reading it in order to analyse it and determine why I am missing its message.
Here we go again.
The FIRST FUCKING PARAGRAPH no less...
"Psychosomatic illnesses are those which have a mental origin but which are nevertheless organic. Despite the fact that there existed no precise scientific proof of this before Dianetics, an opinion as to their existence has been strong since the days of Greece, and in recent times various drug preparations have been concocted and sold which were supposed to overcome these sicknesses."
You can not prove psychosomatic illness. You can merely disprove a physical cause. That's it.
Not only that, but if Dianetics claims it has scientific proof ... OK, where is it? I don't see any in this book so far.
This is then followed by more unsubstantiated facts and figures.
I take a moment to bring to the fore some of the writing, "That all illneses are psychosomatic is, of course, absurd, for there exist, after all, life forms called germs which have survival as their goals." I bring this forward because there has been the argument that in Scientology the belief is that all illnesses are the result of the mind. The writing here, clearly recognises that not all illnesses are as a result of the mind. Indeed page 132 does give a clear picture on this subject.
On its passage in to the next page, however, things do become slightly muddier. "Treatment for accidental injury, surgery for various things such as malformation inherent in the body on a genetic basis and orthopedics, which actually can be classed under both, remain properly outside the field of dianetics, although it can be remarked in passing that almost all accidents are to be traced to dramatization of engrams and that Clears rarely have accidents." Discussion of this last sentence really does need to be backed up with figures from scientific study, which, of course, are conspicuous by their absence.
Perhaps one of the most contradictory and firm statements does come on page 133 "For example the common cold has been found to be psychosomatic. Clears do not get colds. Just what, if any, part the virus plays in the common cold is not known, but it is known that when engrams about colds are lifted, no further colds appear - which is a laboratory fact not so far contradicted by 270 cases."
With a quick search, that paragraph was blown to hell with numerous references at the bottom for you to get stuck in to. The common cold is not psychosomatic.
"At the present time, Dianetic research is scheduled to include cancer and diabetes." Good grief. All I can continue to ask is WHERE THE HELL IS THIS BLOODY RESEARCH!!!
I did a search but all I could readily come up with was more of the same of a Why We Protest discussion about Scientology beliefs and this discussion about Scientology publication, "Clear body, clear mind," which all seem to fly in the face of the previous assertion, "That all illneses are psychosomatic is, of course, absurd."
I can't find any actual note of any scientology research facility or actual papers which have been reviewed and accepted by international peers. If they've got a proper medical research facility, it seems to not be on any radar.
On the subject of alteration of physical sensory performance by hypnosis, this is held up to the reader as, "So with the various senses. Here we have simply the spoken word going in to the mind and causing physical function to change." which completely ignores the anecdotal evidence of people losing their sight and their hearing improves to compensate; that the human body is actually capable of the higher range of hearing but that the conscious mind simply isn't paying any attention to it ... that an individual with perfectly functioning eyesight can walk in to a room with a particular object, but they still don't, "see," it. The differentiation between hearing and listening is thus explained by dianetics, as a function of engram alteration rather than difference of concentration.
It is an interesting hypothesis to which, you've guessed it, there is no substance or research to back it up.
Another bold claim with no reference is this... "Mental tone makes body tone go down. Body tone, then being down, makes mental tone go down. This is a matter of inverse geometric progression. A man starts to get sick and, having engrams, he gets sicker. Clears are not subject to this dwindling spiral. Indeed, so entirely superficial is this horrible stuff called psychosomatic illness that it is the first thing which surrenders and can be alleviated without clearing."
The situation itself is nothing new; it was brought up much earlier on in the book with me bringing up the example of a person in a hospital lacking the will to live. What is different here is the claim that clears do not suffer from this and that it is a situation which it is so superficial that it is alleviated easily. Now, how you go about giving someone who has lost the will to live, a reason to live, is not something which I would call a situation which is easily recovered from, by any stretch of the imagination. Also, there remains no independently validated research which confirms that clears do not suffer from this.
Indeed, if a person has engrams, then they are not clear. So this actually highlights a flaw in the entire process; that once the state of clear has been achieved, it is something which is actually easily lost. It does make me ponder the actual value of the effort required to become clear in the first place. This is something I need to consider further as I read on.
Unfortunately, the rest of the chapter continues on these lines, perhaps at its height the unsubstantiated claim on page 146 that a clear is not easily made ill.
Here we go again.
The FIRST FUCKING PARAGRAPH no less...
"Psychosomatic illnesses are those which have a mental origin but which are nevertheless organic. Despite the fact that there existed no precise scientific proof of this before Dianetics, an opinion as to their existence has been strong since the days of Greece, and in recent times various drug preparations have been concocted and sold which were supposed to overcome these sicknesses."
You can not prove psychosomatic illness. You can merely disprove a physical cause. That's it.
Not only that, but if Dianetics claims it has scientific proof ... OK, where is it? I don't see any in this book so far.
This is then followed by more unsubstantiated facts and figures.
I take a moment to bring to the fore some of the writing, "That all illneses are psychosomatic is, of course, absurd, for there exist, after all, life forms called germs which have survival as their goals." I bring this forward because there has been the argument that in Scientology the belief is that all illnesses are the result of the mind. The writing here, clearly recognises that not all illnesses are as a result of the mind. Indeed page 132 does give a clear picture on this subject.
On its passage in to the next page, however, things do become slightly muddier. "Treatment for accidental injury, surgery for various things such as malformation inherent in the body on a genetic basis and orthopedics, which actually can be classed under both, remain properly outside the field of dianetics, although it can be remarked in passing that almost all accidents are to be traced to dramatization of engrams and that Clears rarely have accidents." Discussion of this last sentence really does need to be backed up with figures from scientific study, which, of course, are conspicuous by their absence.
Perhaps one of the most contradictory and firm statements does come on page 133 "For example the common cold has been found to be psychosomatic. Clears do not get colds. Just what, if any, part the virus plays in the common cold is not known, but it is known that when engrams about colds are lifted, no further colds appear - which is a laboratory fact not so far contradicted by 270 cases."
With a quick search, that paragraph was blown to hell with numerous references at the bottom for you to get stuck in to. The common cold is not psychosomatic.
"At the present time, Dianetic research is scheduled to include cancer and diabetes." Good grief. All I can continue to ask is WHERE THE HELL IS THIS BLOODY RESEARCH!!!
I did a search but all I could readily come up with was more of the same of a Why We Protest discussion about Scientology beliefs and this discussion about Scientology publication, "Clear body, clear mind," which all seem to fly in the face of the previous assertion, "That all illneses are psychosomatic is, of course, absurd."
I can't find any actual note of any scientology research facility or actual papers which have been reviewed and accepted by international peers. If they've got a proper medical research facility, it seems to not be on any radar.
On the subject of alteration of physical sensory performance by hypnosis, this is held up to the reader as, "So with the various senses. Here we have simply the spoken word going in to the mind and causing physical function to change." which completely ignores the anecdotal evidence of people losing their sight and their hearing improves to compensate; that the human body is actually capable of the higher range of hearing but that the conscious mind simply isn't paying any attention to it ... that an individual with perfectly functioning eyesight can walk in to a room with a particular object, but they still don't, "see," it. The differentiation between hearing and listening is thus explained by dianetics, as a function of engram alteration rather than difference of concentration.
It is an interesting hypothesis to which, you've guessed it, there is no substance or research to back it up.
Another bold claim with no reference is this... "Mental tone makes body tone go down. Body tone, then being down, makes mental tone go down. This is a matter of inverse geometric progression. A man starts to get sick and, having engrams, he gets sicker. Clears are not subject to this dwindling spiral. Indeed, so entirely superficial is this horrible stuff called psychosomatic illness that it is the first thing which surrenders and can be alleviated without clearing."
The situation itself is nothing new; it was brought up much earlier on in the book with me bringing up the example of a person in a hospital lacking the will to live. What is different here is the claim that clears do not suffer from this and that it is a situation which it is so superficial that it is alleviated easily. Now, how you go about giving someone who has lost the will to live, a reason to live, is not something which I would call a situation which is easily recovered from, by any stretch of the imagination. Also, there remains no independently validated research which confirms that clears do not suffer from this.
Indeed, if a person has engrams, then they are not clear. So this actually highlights a flaw in the entire process; that once the state of clear has been achieved, it is something which is actually easily lost. It does make me ponder the actual value of the effort required to become clear in the first place. This is something I need to consider further as I read on.
Unfortunately, the rest of the chapter continues on these lines, perhaps at its height the unsubstantiated claim on page 146 that a clear is not easily made ill.
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