Axiom 53. A stable datum is necessary to the alignment of data.

This is known to Scientologists as the law of confusion and stable data. They’ll often give this example: Snow falling is a great confusion because there are so many snowflakes that you couldn’t possibly keep track of them all. But if you focus on one snowflake it will appear to be relatively stable, the rest will move in relationship to it and so a kind of order is perceived. Another example: If you are dizzy you’ll feel better if you hold on to something firmly fixed in position, like a door-post or a concrete wall; that will stop the apparent movements of the room - or at least make it seem more predictable.

That’s true enough, but the examples are somewhat misguided because this axiom applies primarily to data, which is to say to thought rather than matter. It belongs in the field of knowingness, lookingness and analytical thought.

The Tone Scale is a stable datum; it makes emotions less confusing. If we didn’t know it we wouldn’t know the sequence of emotions that people run through when they rise or fall on the scale. We might think that a person in sympathy was much better off than one in antagonism because he appears to be more friendly and cooperative, but that’s not the case; he is neither better off nor more genuinely helpful. If we want to get him upscale we need him to go through anger and antagonism before he can even be bored.

Another stable datum: If one can determine whether a person is over or under the watershed at 2.0 one can immediately know whether it’s possible to talk easily and rationally with him because he is above the watershed. If he’s below and incapable of listening and reasoning it would be wiser to either act as his auditor temporarily (coffee shop style), or politely cease to be in ARC with him and leave the scene.

The first two things that new Scientologists learn are usually TRs and the Tone Scale. They find, naturally, that it’s hard to keep their TRs in at all times. I would like to interject a piece of advice to make life easier: Whenever the person you are talking to falls under the watershed at 2.0, put in your TRs and don’t originate anything - just listen & acknowledge with good ARC (or leave). Whenever the person is above the watershed you can relax and treat him as if he were a sensible sort of chap – an equal. No particular reason to strain to keep your TRs in all the time. Understanding this – and therefore applying it – can prevent a lot of strife and discord as well as broken friendships and marriages. It will reduce the hostilities and sufferings of life – and not only for new Scientologists. Did this paragraph bring some order to a confusion of yours?

Bringing order to data – knowledge, information, assumptions – is the realm of the Logics of Scientology. Specifically we have ...

Logic 10. The value of a datum is established by the amount of alignment (relationship) it imparts to other data.

This Logic is itself a good stable datum. Put a high value on data which align a lot of facts, like these axioms.

However, a stable datum isn’t necessarily true. The little child’s stable datum that traffic is dangerous is not accurate at all, but it will keep the child safe from accidents until he learns when traffic is dangerous and when not, how to cross the street safely etc. His stable datum that there are evil spirits at large in the woods after dark is false, but if he went into the woods at night he could very possibly fall and be hurt or lose his way. He might be given a better stable datum but this one does have some workability. Obviously, a stable datum can also simply be both wrong and useless.

We can improve our stable data by detecting that a stable datum is false or inaccurate and get a better one. We think a guy is nice because he appears friendly; we then find out that he is only nice because he wants to sell us something. We create a new stable datum: People who want to sell us something may act friendly but not have our best interests at heart. This makes us less gullible. Gradually, we may become experts at recognizing little things that identify a salesman e.g. the false smile, his readiness to step inside the front door, his bag etc. Our stable data have improved.

Of course it’s better if a stable datum is true in the first place but true stable data are gained by first having any datum and then correcting and refining it as new experience proves it inaccurate or wrong.

All empirical science, and that includes Scientology, works on this principle. We start out with certain assumptions - bright ideas, hopeful stable data, inspired thoughts. Whenever they don’t work out we try to make a better assumption, a hypothesis, which is at least somewhat based on experience (the failures of the former stable data). As we continue this process the hypothesis at some point is consistently proven valid – or rather: it’s difficult to prove it false – so it gains the status of a theory. A theory is the highest level of knowledge within a science. A scientist, a person, may be certain that a theory is true and he can be said to know - as we understand knowing in Scientology: “... certainty, not data, is knowledge” (Factor 28) - and the scientist could be wrong and later admit he didn’t know. But a science – a large, integrated body of data, assumptions and conclusions – is always open to the possibility that new observations may prove a theory wrong.

This is a central difference between science and a religion of (unshakable) faith where Holy Scripture must not be questioned. The whole game of science is to find fault with its theories and develop better ones in order to improve knowledge.

Logic 11. The value of a datum or field of data can be established by its degree of assistance in survival or its inhibition to survival.

Here we have introduced an arbitrary stable datum into the science: It’s an observable fact that life tries to survive, but it’s arbitrary to say that survival is good or valuable; that is an opinion (Axiom 31). This is also the case if we substitute”urge to exist” for “survive”. But this is what we mean by workability: We turn purely theoretical knowledge into something interesting for us by applying it to the eight dynamics. We can learn the principles that apply to life and use them to our advantage in The Game of Life.

Logic 12. The value of a datum or a field of data is modified by the viewpoint of the observer.

This highlights the fact that each individual has his personal set of dynamics, or his own view of the 8 dynamics if you prefer. Eating meat is good survival for a human or a wolf but not for a sheep or deer. An infectious disease is good survival for the bacteria in question but not for its hosts, the patients.

In a human society, high prices are good for those who produce or sell the merchandise but unreasonably high prices are bad for those who buy it. So unbalanced dynamics produce conflict, while balanced dynamics produce harmony. Inequality, power games, discrimination etc. are confusions of misaligned and conflicting goals and purposes, of thoughts, emotions and efforts.

In Scientology we have the stable datum that man has an urge to exist on 8 dynamics. Self-determinism in its limited sense, i.e. behaving only in the interest of one’s first dynamic, possibly including the second and some of the third (family and some groups), will harm the upper dynamics and thus, ultimately, the person himself. By limiting his viewpoint to himself as a body he falls away from pan-determinism and winds up in self-determinism. You have undoubtedly noticed that egotism rarely inspires co-operation. One can also limit oneself to operate rather exclusively on any other dynamic or combination of dynamics, e.g. use all one’s efforts to save humanity, or animals etc. A balanced set of dynamics is necessary for optimum survival.

Too few of us have been brought up to be pan-determined, but as we mature we may come to use it as a good stable datum and decide to expand by consolidating first the lower dynamics and then gradually including the upper ones (DAX 167, quoted under Axiom 24).

Axiom 54. A tolerance of confusion and an agreed-upon stable datum on which to align the data in a confusion are at once necessary for a sane reaction on the eight dynamics. This defines sanity.

A stable datum won’t bring order to a confusion automatically. The thetan has to do it himself, although he will sometimes do it so quickly that he apparently isn’t thinking (no awareness of his awareness, explained under Axiom 1: What is it like to be a static). He must therefore be able to have, or at least confront the situation to some degree - to tolerate it so he can align the data in the confusion. If he won’t look it won’t happen.

One needs to become able to confront whatever one is confronted with. One cannot align data that “mustn’t be there” for not-is-ness reduces understanding (Axiom 22). One should “be able to experience anything” (first rule for a happy living; quoted under Axiom 12). Aberration can make this difficult but “the way out is the way through”. The things we’ve stored in our reactive banks are the very things we couldn’t tolerate in the past and we’d better become able to confront them now, otherwise any other-determinism may kick in and derail us and we won’t be sane.

It’s a peculiar fact that the more basic one’s stable data are, the easier it is to be flexible and able to change. “Be polite!” is good advice, but knowing the Tone Scale will allow one to achieve higher quality communication sooner. A person who is well oriented and has no doubts about his basic intents and the rules of the game can change his more superficial opinions and actions all over the place because he doesn’t lose sight of what he’s really all about. He can pick one road to Rome or another.

“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday”. This quotation has been ascribed to Lincoln, but whether he said so or not it’s a philosophy characteristic of an authentic person who knows the stable data that are most important to him. Whether he achieves his aims this way or that isn’t very important. He is flexible and he becomes wiser because he continually learns from his little mistakes (cf. Axiom 53, comment about science).

If too much is going on, life can become intolerable. This is plus randomity. If not enough is happening then life can become intolerably boring, barren or drab. This is minus randomity. Either is a confusion – in the environment or the mind – and is, if of sufficient magnitude, an engram (DAX 94). But as one’s confront and havingness increases one can tolerate higher and lower levels of randomity. One’s band of optimum randomity becomes wider and this is the band where a person can learn and be sane (Axioms of Dianetics 74 & 81).

Tolerance can be increased, for example by bull-baited TR0 or by having a causative attitude, with ARC, towards life. Of course tolerance can also be increased by auditing. Note that greater tolerance is not a matter of becoming stronger and more able to keep disturbing factors at a distance with force. Tolerance is not not-is-ness, although not-is-ness can make plus or minus randomity bearable until optimum randomity can be achieved (cf. DAX 78, quoted under Axiom 18). It’s a matter of being able to accept and have what happens with equanimity. In other words: One is simply not adversely affected by it.

Stable data are taught to an individual, e.g. by parents, schools and Scientology training, but a person also creates his own stable data as he gains experience in life. Knowledge of Scientology philosophy gives a person an extraordinary array of stable data of a very high truth value. Knowledge concerning the 8 dynamics mentioned in this axiom, for example, is itself a stable datum to which a host of data can be aligned.

The reactive bank gives false data and compulsions and lowers one’s general tolerance of confusion. It should be run out, of course, but confusion is not caused by aberration alone. Within the game a lack of relevant data can also create or add to a confusion. We need adequate information if we are to act effectively.

DAX 107: Data of plus or minus randomity depends for its confusion on former plus or minus randomity or absent data.

Plus or minus randomity is synonymous with reactive mind phenomena or external conditions that produce locks, engrams and secondaries. One’s ability to tolerate depends on one’s ability to cope with high and low randomity. This depends to a marked degree on having stable data, preferably true and basic. And if we are missing important data about the present situation we cannot make correct decisions - and thus we lose control.

And finally, sanity depends on operating rationally on all dynamics, gradually increasing ARC from lower to higher (cf. the Book I Axiom quoted under Axiom 48; DAX 167, quoted under Axiom 24).

Axiom 55. The cycle of action is a consideration. Create, survive, destroy, the cycle of action accepted by the G.E.*, is only a consideration which can be changed by the thetan making a new consideration or different action cycles.

*Genetic Entity (see Tech. Dic.)

A Cycle of Action is a communication, a creation of an effect. The term usually refers to a major cycle that contains many single cycles of communication.

As a general rule we can say that a Cycle of Action ends when the intention that initiated it has been duplicated in the universe in which it takes place. This duplication can be a new condition in a game, which may be a solution to a problem posed (Axiom 39), or one may wish to establish a new stable datum, align data in one’s own universe or invent a dream. When this is achieved the cycle is completed.

These are mechanical completions, performed by altering physical or mental MEST, but a cycle can instead be ended on a level of consideration - by “acknowledging”, or more accurately spotting or knowing again the postulate that initiated the cycle. Once this is done one can decide to simply abandon the cycle with no further consequences and no “hangovers” (Axiom 32). When this happens the Cycle of Action does not follow the pattern described in Axiom 13: create, survive, destroy (the cycle of the G.E.) It just ends.

So, if a person recalls or spots his intention which initiated the cycle, e.g. the posing of the problem or the reason why he decided to do something, he can abandon the cycle halfway through and it will as-is anyway. But if he gives up halfway through because he tires of it and does not spot the initiating postulate, the cycle will stick with him because it’s incomplete. Receiving an engram will often end a cycle in this manner; we give up because we are sick, have an accident etc.

The more incomplete cycles a person has, the more tired he will become. Completing old cycles, either by completing them in MEST or deciding on a postulate level to end them, as described above, will pick him up and revitalize him (PAB 6: Case Opening. Ca. July 1953. Tech. Vol. I, pages 419422).

The Cycle of Action of the G,E. and its relation to the four conditions of existence was the major subject of section 2. It’s the life cycle of an organism but also applies to many other cycles.

However, a closer look shows that it’s really a continuous creativity from the thetan’s viewpoint since all four conditions are postulated into existence. By as-is-ness something is created, but alter-is-ness (change) and not-is-ness  -

(destruction) are considered into being too. Is-ness is a mere apparency but this, too, is considered to be and is in fact considered to be reality. We are creating the cycle all the way through.

Trouble can arise because the thetan puts his creativity on automatic, e.g. by setting up mental machinery; by saying that somebody else is the author of what he himself has created; by saying that he created it in some other way; or he considers that something is independently and therefore ceases to co-create it, relying on others to keep it up. Either way he then ceases to create knowingly and loses his viewpoint as cause, becoming instead interesting MEST on which anybody or anything can create an effect. Also, by not-is-ness the thetan can create a lie that something doesn’t exist. In this way he occludes or hides it and since the thetan has already considered that it does exist it can affect him without his recognizing the source (which is his own considerations). So he perceives instead unrealities seemingly coming out of nowhere.

One can remain creative about any Cycle of Action by being a thetan about life, i.e. by continuously retaining a theta viewpoint from a relatively static position while acting or by regularly generating a time-out to take such a viewpoint and as-is any unwanted is-nesses or unrealities. If one does this one can end a cycle or a game that is initiated by posing a problem by simply continuing to act as planned until the solution or the intended new condition has been attained, leaving no rubble, dead bodies or unrealities behind. Well, the body dies eventually, of course, but one can still be a thetan about it.

As discussed under Axiom 37, an unreality can be re-considered to be a normal is-ness and a known fact, and one can think analytically and self-determinedly with this falsehood. One can then conclude and act rationally, but the conclusions will be wrong because false data entered the reasoning. Auditing can be needed to resolve this condition.

On a consideration level one has the option to change one’s mind about a Cycle of Action by deciding one is not going to complete it after all. There can be good reasons for this; it may have become obvious that the planned result will not serve the intended purpose, or one may realize that it is simply not possible to solve the problem mechanically, that it was posed on false suppositions or that all relevant data were not available. These are valid reasons, but one may also simply decide, on a whim, to end the cycle for no reason whatsoever. But one has to do it on a postulate level, in full awareness of the cycle, including how one decided to initiate it. If one ends it by lying about it or in order to avoid confronting something - in short: by not-is-ness - there will be aberrated rubble. Engrams are such Cycles of Action; they were never really ended.

A better way to do it is simply to cease to be in ARC with a cycle - to neglect it - but without not-ising it. This was drilled in the fifties by processes like Waterloo Station which was done in a populated area: “Tell me something you wouldn’t mind not-knowing about that person”. The auditor wasn’t asking for something the pc didn’t know in the first place, such as where the person lived, but for something in plain view like the red hat he was wearing, her voluminous handbag etc. Then, as a companion process, “Tell me something you wouldn’t mind that person not-knowing about you”. After a while parts of persons would start to vanish for the pc or he would get a sort of double perception of both the entire physical person and his subjective perception of a partially vanished person (Scientology 8-8008, Six Levels of Processing – Issue 5, page 139; original version given in Certainty, Vol. 2, No. 11, 1955, November, Technical Bulletins, volume II, page 284, with a slightly different wording).

I am making the point here that as one continues up the Grade Chart, not everything has to be run out as negative case gain. You can make and unmake your mind without all those mechanics that you thought you needed early in Scientology. If a person wants to be free he must realize at some point that he has no obligation to stick to every past postulate or prior consideration. He is the master of his mind, not its slave, and he has the divine ability to change his mind and see his mental mechanics obediently comply and disappear - if that’s what he wants. But the way out is still the way through: He cannot do this if he cannot confront and handle his masses and energies. If it turns out that he can’t easily change his considerations about something he’ll still have to roll up his sleeves and get to work. He doesn’t mind.

Being able to neglect or ignore something is one of the goals of Scientology for the individual, as stated in Factor 28 in 1953. The remedy for the mess a thetan has got himself into includes:

Factor 28: ... the rehabilitation of the ability of the viewpoint [ed.: the thetan] to assume points of view and create and uncreate, neglect, start, change and stop dimension points [ed.: any object or idea located in a space] of any kind at the determinism of the viewpoint. Certainty in all three universes must be regained, for certainty, not data, is knowledge.

There can be two kinds of neglect. You can neglect something by using not-is-ness or by ceasing to consider that it exists (cf. Axiom 3). The difference is that not-is-ness produces unreality, while if you simply cease to consider that something exists, or that it concerns you, no rubble is left. It is this latter kind of neglect that is meant in the quote. -

Of course if you have agreements with other thetans you may still become subject to the cannonball phenomenon. Something can exist that you don’t perceive and you have not agreed upon directly. This comes under the heading of unknown data (DAX 107, quoted under Axiom 54). These data can be made available with relative ease since they are not pressed-down sevens.

A cycle of action can start with destruction, such as when you turn a corner and see that an accident has happened. This could be the start of the cycle for you, whether you decide to help or just recognize that everything has already been taken care of. If you perceive something already in existence, the cycle begins for you with your first recognition of it, i.e. the unexpected perception of the accident scene. The cycle might end by telling it to your spouse or running the lock or secondary in session; in other words by destroying the lock by as-is-ness which is at the top of the scale.

A Scientology assist would begin with some sort of destruction (e.g. of a body part) or decayed condition and end with a cognition, which is a start, since a cognition is a newly created realization. The pc creates new knowledge relevant to the accident and this ends the assist. As-is-ness brings the cycle back upscale to the condition that existed at the beginning of the cycle, and then the whole cycle vanishes.

Summing up, a Cycle of Action is considered by the thetan all the way through, according to how he considers it.

Axiom 56. Theta brings order to chaos.

Corollary: chaos brings disorder to Theta.

We can solve any problem by becoming theta the solver rather than theta the problem, as we saw in Axiom 49. A friend of mine would sometimes ask, “Do you want to be the problem or live the solution?” Good question. Would you be a player or a piece – or a broken piece? If we forget that we are thetans we become MEST. We can be both: Be MEST in the game, (e.g. a body), but be a thetan about it and bring order to chaos.

The law of this axiom was with us as early as 1951:

DAX 9: The fundamental operation of theta in surviving is bringing order into the chaos of the physical universe

This is a fundamental action in The Game of Life. The game consists in utilizing MEST to advance one’s dynamics. The dynamics are not dealt with directly in the Axioms of Scientology but they are, none the less, the driving force in the human game that we are born into and the theta games that lie open to us.

Looking back to Axiom 55: From the body’s viewpoint, conception and birth are creative beginnings. From the thetan’s point of view a human lifetime is a Cycle of Action that starts out with chaos – a condition of “destructeds”, actually, since the physical universe is a product of not-is-ness. We incarnate into a crying mess. Then we become able to control and create order on more and more of our dynamics as we grow and learn and find our way in life. We have several cycles going in parallel and they start, persist and end in various ways.

You might say that whenever we become aware of something bad, and react to it, we start a cycle that begins with our perceiving and agreeing on an existing condition of destruction or decay. Then we bring it upscale, if we can, or end it in apathy – which, strictly speaking, means the cycle never ends.

When we create something new, when we engage in a new sub-game, the cycle begins with creation of a consideration. There are all kinds of Cycles of Action but, wherever we begin, we want to solve problems and create effects. If things are too orderly for our taste for randomity we increase chaos by posing more problems. If they are too turbulent and intense we may lessen randomity by withdrawing and viewing the situation as theta (Axiom 49). We may withdraw from the heat of action, gain more knowledge, get information or other resources, or we may audit out aberration in others and ourselves and so bring order.

Whatever the game is, the basic purpose is to create an effect, as stated in Axiom 10, and by extension develop games by posing problems, as stated in Axiom 39. But how this is done will depend on the set-up of the game one engages in – the playground, the rules, the barriers, the freedoms, the moods, the goals, the individualities and aberrations of the other players. A thetan could play a game with a group of thetans and no organisms, a game with organisms only or both.

The basic principle of a game remains: There must be a MEST side and a theta side, i.e. the thetan playing within the game and being whatever role he has (the piece on the board game), and theta as the solver, planner, creator and organizer, i.e. the player who brings order to MEST via this beingness that follows the rules of the game (Axiom 48-49).

Some might be in a static condition with no game, but we don’t encounter these in MEST. Pcs are human, though we may communicate with thetans without bodies too.

Axiom 57. Order manifests when communication, control and havingness are available to theta. 

Definitions:

Communication: the interchange of ideas across space.

Control: positive postulating, which is intention and the execution thereof.

Havingness: that which permits the experience of mass and pressure.

This is the theory behind the processes known as the CCHs which is an acronym for Communication, Control and Havingness. They include ”Give me that hand”, ”Walk over to that wall” and pc mirroring hand motions of the auditor, without and with a book held in one hand. The ability to bring order to a confused situation or mind is of course essential in all of life, not just at Grade I where these processes are given.

Communication produces havingness, which produces familiarity, and familiarity gives predictability. This makes good control possible.

CCH is the ARC triangle in action. Havingness is the reality corner in the ARC triangle and communication is communication. Control is affinity manifesting in action which may at first seem surprising; but if you have seen a baby being nursed by his mother you may get the idea. The baby feels cared for when it is controlled – fed, changed etc. Control/affinity goes the other way too: A person’s successful control plays a great role for his experience of affinity. Being able to carry out one’s postulates causes one to feel pride, while failure to do so makes one feel degraded (PDC Supplementary lecture 2, 530114). Remember: Beingness, space and affinity are synonymous.

Life in this universe is all about handling matter and energy in space and time, and so we have this axiom:

DAX 161: The control center [ed.: the thetan] attempts the halting or lengthening of time, the expansion or contraction or space and the decrease or increase of energy and matter.

This is the primary source of invalidation, and it is also a primary source of aberration.

Of course you can rise above invalidation and run out aberration, but a good rule of thumb is to take on problems and challenges that fit your present ability to control, your stable data and your ability to tolerate confusion, so that you can react sanely on the eight dynamics (cf. Axiom 54).

The Game of Life gets better faster if you keep winning; better than if you keep feeling that your endless struggle to overcome obstacles isn’t quite worth your while.