Letter: John W. Campbell Jr. To A. E. Van Vogt
April 29, 2010 by admin
Filed under Hubbard's research, Other Material
Author: Chapdelaine, S. P. A.
Book title: The John W. Campbell Letters with Isaac Asimov & A.E. van Vogt
Publication date: 1993
Location: Franklin, Tennessee
Publisher: AC Projects, Inc.
Description: Campbell describes early Dianetics to A. E. Van Vogt; says it contains "parlor-tricks."
A.E. van vogt
November 16, 1949Dear van:
I haven’t heard from you in some time, and with the subject of Dianetics boiling, I’ve been wondering what you’ve been doing. I’m still going to see to it that you get a copy of the operator’s manual as soon as possible, but the thing is undergoing continuous revision. So much of any technique is always at the “of course” level in the mind of the man who knows it that, inevitably, he forgets to put in many of the little — but critical — points. Ron didn’t have anywhere near all the essential dope in his first writing of the manual; a fact which he couldn’t detect because he knew the stuff so well by then that he’d forgotten the trouble he had inventing it originally. Only when we tried to operate without that “of course” stuff, reinventing some of it as we went, did we point out its absence. Much of it is still in process, therefore, and the manual still isn’t ready.
At the same time, we’re renaming much of the material and concepts. For instance, the term “unconsciousness” has to be redefined so radically that the only sensible method is to invent a new word, and put on it a definition of our own that eliminates quarrels over what is meant. Many, for instance, would complain that you can’t have “unconsciousness” in a prenatal human, because he isn’t conscious yet and therefore can’t be rendered unconscious. So we have a new term; anaten. If a man is knocked unconscious, he is anaten; but also when he is hypnotized he is anaten, and when the prenatal human is seriously injured it is rendered anaten. The neologism is made up –like radar –from the initial letters. In this case, analytic awareness attenuation.
Similar neologisms are needed throughout; they avoid confusion of old meanings for new concept-words. For instance, “impediment” is now a norn.1 That one derives from Norse mythology, but has the advantage that it has no English meaning, is short, easy to say, and is extremely unapt to appear in the content of a norn. We found, on the other hand, a case where one patient had as part of his “impediment,” “he’s just an impediment to us.” This sort of cross-up can cause trouble; we’re trying to get rid of “impediments,” but his reactive mind content says that he himself is an impediment; therefore we are trying to get rid of — i.e. kill –him. Naturally, he wasn’t very cooperative at that point. But if we had been trying to get rid of norns, on the other hand –.
If you remember the Norse Norns, they were the equivalent of the Greek Fates. Three old hags with one eye, one ear, and one tongue between them; they were arbitrary, reasonless, they determined the pattern of a man’s life without his consent or awareness. That’s a norn son, that’s a norn!
Another trouble with “impediment” was that it implies a static process — a blocking. But the actual mechanism isn’t static; it’s goddamned dynamic — it drives man. It can drive him to suicide, or murder, or it can drive him into catatonic rigidity.
But if you want to see just how far off the path the professional psychologists have strayed, try these home-game tricks on your friends. These are a few items of parlor-Dianetics that won’t ruin anybody.
First: Think of the last time you walked out of your home there, the last time you said good-bye to your wife. Recall the scene, and visualize it. Can you, in your mind, get an actual visual picture of the scene. Can you see her in memory, where she was standing or sitting –the scene as a picture? If so, can you see colors in the scene? What color is her dress? Her chair or other articles near her? Next, what did she say –what were the words? Can you hear her voice in your mind, as an actual sound –the tones, inflections and so on? If you have full normal human memory, you will. Also, remember when you combed or brushed your hair when you first got up this morning. Can you feel the tactile sensation of the brush on your scalp? Can you, in memory, smell the sensation of the brush on your scalp? Can you, in memory, smell the odor of roasting beef? taste the memory of a good, crisp apple? All of these sensory memories should be present; sight, sound and tactile are normally clear and strong, the others less strong„ but present. If any of them is missing — you have a norn somewhere which blocks it. And if you try that on a dozen people — fully awake, conscious memory — you’ll find that about 1/3rd of them don’t hear. Some don’t see colors; some don’t see at all, some don’t hear at all. And some neither see nor hear. I fall in the latter class; as yet I neither see, feel nor hear in memory — which explains why I’ve never been able to carry a tune (how can you sing if you can’t hear what it should sound like) and can’t remember people. (How could I; I can’t see what they looked like!)
Item: the second requires the cooperation of a few children between 7 and 12 years old. It’s called, “Remember When Game,” and the child must like, trust, and believe the questioner — which makes the child’s favorite parent the best one for the trick usually. It may turn out, though, that there are some fancy mutual abortion attempts in the background, wherefore a nurse, or a neighbor, may be the child’s best and most trusted friend. You simply ask the child — fully awake and conscious — to remember the earliest memories. First will come 4-5 year old memories. Tell him or her “Oh, no — I mean early — way, way back when you were tiny. Just a tiny baby. You can remember –just go back, back in your mind. Look for the little mind pictures —.” A little coaxing will bring first-birthday memories easily. (The trick won’t work, of course, if the child’s memory has been blocked by norns saying, “You can’t remember,” and “you can’t see or hear or feel!” No use trying with those poor kids.) But a little practice, a little coaxing and you’ll get fully conscious recall of things at 2 to 3 months old. It isn’t wise to go back too much further; you may restimulate the highly painful and unpleasant birth memories, which are better left undisturbed until therapeutic approach is made. My 9-year-old within 20 minutes of starting was describing her Grandfather’s first visit — she was about 2 months old. She quoted him, then started asking what, “Weston rating” and “Panchromatic” meant. Had quite a time stumbling over those words, too. Dad took movies of her that time, using Super XX panchromatic film, with a 100 Weston rating.
Very useful memory training for children — they’ll have a damn good use for a memory like that. Throw nonsense words at them, or totally unfamiliar polysyllables, and make them repeat them back. Tell `em to, “listen to what I said — go back in your memory and listen to it again.” Pretty soon they really develop facility at that memory-regression, and use it regularly. Then school work gets wonderfully easy What’s 7 X 8? Why — see it in the book — or listen to teacher saying it. Just go back in memory and get the right answer. Spelling? Just see it in the book! You need only look at it once, after all, because after that you can always go back and look at it again!
Now tell me, my friend, just what in hell have the professional psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts been doing for 50 years that they never discovered even those simple, readily observed and checked factors of human mind and memory? Sitting on their well-padded rumps, with their thinking mind completely out of gear? Or so hypnotized by their own inordinately complex theories that they couldn’t stop to observe such simple facts — and find out why they existed?
Here’s another one. Very useful around the household. Know someone who has blue-spells? That person is then redramatizing a norn that’s full of despair, apathy, sadness, etc. They are, temporarily, stuck in that norn, and dramatizing it. It’s apt to be accompanied by some sort of ache or pain, but doesn’t have to be — nevertheless, they’re dramatizing a norn, and stuck in it. You can’t argue them out of the norn; it’s a part in a play, only they are stuck in it and don’t know it. You can’t talk them out of it logically, because you can’t talk to that individual; the person is dramatizing someone long gone — it’s like arguing with someone in a sound movie. You see and hear them –but they aren’t there really, just a projector and a screen. In this case the person you see is just a projector and screen for someone who isn’t there –and you can’t argue with the projector-screen But you can fool it. Listen, pick up the exact words and phrases used by the individual, until you know most of the key phrases. Then you start playing that part. You act blue; you use those phrases and words. Try to match the tone. And in about two minutes flat you’ll have the ex-blue individual busily cheering you up. Reason: You’ve taken over the part he was dramatizing –and since he’s stuck in that particular norn, if you pre-empt that role, he’s forced to take over the opposite part. The opposite part in the drama was, of course, busily trying to cheer up the depressed person your victim was dramatizing — so the person is forced to be the cheerer-upper!
That’s a general law of Dianetics. When an individual displays an unusual and severe emotional state, the individual is dramatizing a norn. The person will be dramatizing one of the personalities in the original scene. If someone else pre-empts the role being dramatized by that individual, the individual is forced to do one of two things: break out of the norn entirely — thus returning to some other emotional state, and possibly his own, natural personality (though probably jumping into still a new norn) — or take up the opposite role in the norn. A suicider, for instance, standing on the window-ledge can’t be argued in; the thing to do is to pick up his words and phrases, repeat them exactly, and when you’ve got his complete attention, start climbing out with him. He won’t let you; he has to accept the other role in that norn — which was the role of the “oh, no-you-mustn’t-do-that!” party, and he now has to argue you out of suicide, and prevent you from doing it! He’s under just as powerful a nornal compulsion to do that as he was, before, to commit suicide himself.
Any emotional state — except true love — is almost certain to be nornal. Even attitudes are usually nornal. Suppose a man had a free-handed, fun-loving father, and a worry-wart, penny-pinching, gotta-watch-the-budget mother. If his wife really wants to work him, she watches for words and phrases on each dramatization. He’ll have certain speech-patterns when he’s free-handed — that is, being Dad -and quite different speech-patterns when he’s being budget-conscious — i.e., playing the role of Mother. So, if wife wants a new coat, she puts on the Mother act — she uses the mother-role phrases. That forces hubby into the free-handed, lets-enjoy-ourselves-that’s-what-money’s-for father role. He forces the coat on her. But if wifey feels he ought not to buy that new television set just now — she puts on the Father role, using the father words and phrases. And hubby, of course, then has to take the mother-dramatization, gets budget-conscious, and doesn’t buy the television set.
It takes observation, thought, patience and figuring to get the full effect of this trick in the finer little low-potential items like attitudes. In great emotional crises — suicide, homicidal mania or the insanities — the dramatization is so powerful and complete that the entire structure of the norn can readily be mapped out. Then it isn’t too hard to break that particular dramatization.
I repeat: What have the psychologists been doing for the past fifty years?
But I think those items will interest and stimulate you. Try them out on some of your friends; you’ll find that Ron Hubbard’s really got answers.
Regards, John W. Campbell, Jr.
Chapdelaine, S. P. A. (1993). The John W. Campbell Letters with Isaac Asimov & A.E. van Vogt (Volume II, pp. 627-631). Franklin, TN: AC Projects, Inc.
Notes
- Norn was renamed engram. Ref. Dianetics Evolution of a Science (1955). ↩