The Clear

In reading this chapter, the concept of clear becomes clear, but the purpose remains hidden.

To explain the position; it is maintained that a person suffering the aberration of colour blindness, as example, may be losing their vision of full colour perception not by the physical failure of a receptor component, but by an aberration of the mind or personality which adjusts the signal before it is evaluated by the concious mind.

"Violins play melodies, not monotones, bring no pain and are enjoyed to a fine, full limit if the Clear likes violins as a matter of taste." thus the line is drawn between the personal taste of the clear, or the uncontrolled aberration of the non-clear.

However, the text fails to answer the other side; the clear who's taste is not for the violin might well justifiably perceive the playing of the violin as a monotone which brings pain. There is also no account taken of situations like my own; where colours are more vivid when glasses are worn ... this is clearly a matter of physical issue rather than an aberration of the mind; otherwise the aberration would still be present when the glasses were being worn ... or otherwise my optician did not only examine the optical properties of my eyes during the examination, but also my mental aberrations and fitted allowance for them also in to my prescription. Wow; my optical prescription corrects not only my optical senses, but also my mental aberrations! Cool!

How is any individual to be able to ascertain whether a picture looks dull to them because of either optical dysfunction, mental aberration or personal taste; or even a combination of all three?

At this point, we are thus no further forward on the separation of clear from any of the other two controls (without medical intervention to ascertain the status of the physical.)

There, perhaps, is how we could begin to progress; once medicine has ascertained the physical status then if there is another method of separating personal taste from aberration then the difference between the three states can be ascertained. Yes?

At this point the book concludes, "Thus, the perceptions of an aberee (noncleared individual) vary greatly from those of the cleared (unaberated) individual." while I, personally, can only conclude (at this point in the reading) that without a reliable mechanism for determining whether an affect is down to aberration or personal choice, is one of any number of personal conclusions or beliefs; for without a separation mechanism, there is still no basis in fact for the conclusion. This may be where, "auditing," comes in, but I'm jumping ahead of the book on that point.

I thus read on.

A confusing argument on eyesight ensues, with the account that, "clears," have been known to buy five pairs of spectacles in quick succession after their eyesight naturally returns to near normal vision. What this has to do with being clear or the practice of dianetics, I am not sure. The implication is that the, "clear," mind actually instructs the optics to go against the easy way out; ie. the correction of the glasses. Personally, if I am to direct my eyes, I have to consciously control them and the amount of conscious muscle control I have is actually quite limited. The conclusion, while not outside the bounds of possibility, is nevertheless extremely improbable if it is to happen without intervention of conscious thought or at the least, directed subconscious thought to instruct and re-train the eye muscles.

It is not a hidden situation that glasses are present to correct a situation in the eyes; to relieve the symptoms; they are not a cure. If left to their own devices, the body is capable of resolving its own issues; this is not outside the bounds of expected natural behaviour. There are some conditions like my stigma in each eye, or the onset of occlusion, that I would not expect the body to self correct no matter what I believed; physical intervention would be the only actual cure.

So exactly what the eye and glasses section is doing here, I am not sure. I have definately noted that the wording used here attests to some clears but does not make a blanket statement that all clears will regain near normal sight.

We are still in muddy water territory here. The boldest claim so far is that, "With the removal of aberrations, repeated tests have proven that the body makes a valiant effort to reconstruct back to optimum." However here we have, once again, no actual reference to any research to back up this claim. The best we have is to come back to the anecdotal evidence that the well being of the mind has an effect on the body. There is nothing to align the effects of Dianetics with these processes; happiness and good feeling brought about by any means could thus cause the body to self-correct.

We then progress to the subject of hypnotism and regression. Hubbard writes of hypnotism as if it is a past art. "One upon a time, an art known as hypnotism used what was called 'regression' on hypnotized subjects, the hypnotist sending the subjects back, in one of two ways, to incidents in his past." The writing goes on to state that the clear can effectively regress without the need for hypnosis.

With no reports or accurate events cited, there is, again, nothing to substantiate this. A critical report from people about the techniques employed, throws a shadow over this being possible. From what I have read from various accounts, the processes of auditing, training procedures, etc. have themselves induced mental states the same as, or similar to, hypnosis. This, unfortunately, undermines the written claim.

Further undermining the claim is written on this subject in the book, "Wide awake, he can 'return' to moments in his part. Until asked to do so, he probably will not know he has such an ability. If he had it, he probably thought everybody could do it (the type of supposition which has kept so much of this data from coming to light before.)" which again fails to make the claim that all clears have such recolective abilities' in a world where some people are known to have varying degrees of recall, right through to people with photographic memories, there is still nothing so far which is promoting a clear as having any ability beyond that of the wide range of people in society who have beliefs and abilities at either end of the norm range.

So far, a clear is not coming up to be that special; just an average human being operating within normal parameters.

There is a very obvious example of implication here whilst not making specific claims. To go forward in part of the description of people who are capable of optimum recall, "These people, thinking about a ship, would see a specific ship, feel the motion of her if they thought of being aboard her, smell the pine tar or even less savoury odours and hear whatever sounds there were about her. They would see the ship in full colour motion and hear it in full tone audio.

These faculties vary widely in the aberree. Some when told to think of a rose, can merely visualise one. Some can smell one but not see it."

Very clever writing. It does not state that a clear will attain optimum recall, indeed makes no link between a clear and a person who has optimum recall. However, the described opposite of a clear, an aberree, is stated to have a wide variety of abilities in the faculty of recall. There is thus an implication of where a clear stands in terms of recall by giving a very clever statement where an aberree stands on the situation.

The writing thus describes the abilities of a person with optimum recall without making any link to that person being a clear, a scientologist ... anything. Against this, it is only to be expected that the average person will fall below this level, aberree or dianetics student.

That, by the way, is a conclusion made without resorting to the realm of an individuals strength of imagination. On that subject, however, later on we get a solid statement out of the chapter, "A Clear uses imagination in its entirety." It goes on. "The Clear has full colour-video, tone-sonic, tactile, olfactory, rhythmic, kinesthetic, thermal and organic imagination in kind." It then undoes itself by stating, "But creative imagination, that possession by which works of art are done, states built and man enriched, can be envisioned as a special function, independent in operation and in no way dependent for its existence upon an aberrated condition in the individual, since the examination of its activity in and use by a clear possessing it adequately demonstrates its inherent character. It is rarely absent in any individual."

The most I can draw from this is that a clear has better use of their imagination. There is little reference to the status of imagination in someone who is non-clear, but I do know that the power of my own imagination tends to vary with my mood. It is one of a number of conclusions that a person with a better self-image, no matter how obtained, is more free to indulge in stronger mental impact from their imaginings.

Now we get in to a meatier statement about rationality. "Rationality, as divorced from aberration, can be studied in a cleared person only." There is a following statement which matches this, but is not mentioned. In order to study rationality, the studying person must also be clear of aberration. This opens the whole can of worms. What is the definition of, "normal"?

There is a distinct lack of statements of what a Clear actually is. The reader can only conclude that a clear person is someone who is not aberrated. The chapter makes statements on observed effects of a positive mind on the body but stops short in direct links. Given what has been written about a clear in the past, I was expecting the chapter to say things like, "A clear will be able to remember everything that they see and hear," but it doesn't.

Rather than put everything in the clear, it is full of possibilities, maybees, anecdotal observations and the like. It gave this reader the impression that if I were to work towards becoming clear then there are some ways in which the body and mind might improve itself, but there are no guarantees; meanwhile the aberrated person will definitely not gain from these benefits.

This, I find to be not only wooly, but leaving me with questions; how about the people in hospital who are solid of resolution, good of heart and recover well; about the person who leaves the glasses off and re-trains their eyes ... the vast, vast majority of the people in the world are not clear and these things are happening to them. Although it is possible to take the position that they are unaberrated and just haven't been audited, I think that this, along with many argumentative positions that it is possible to take after reading this chapter, are actually quite unsound.

So, I am left with the conclusion that a clear person is one who is free of aberrations, but not quite so clear on what that benefit brings to the individual.

Next up - The Goal of Man. Feels like million dollar territory.