[Previously posted on Beliefnet 12/7/02 8:21 AM]
As I walked toward the Dianetic Center at Central Square in Cambridge, I was literally shivering with excitement. I had already taken all the required psychometric tests. I had already paid $1000 for 25 hours of auditing.
I now sat expectantly in a chair waiting for my auditor. My auditor arrived. She was a young, pretty girl with rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes, and a bright, friendly smile. She motioned me to follow her to the auditing room upstairs.
There were two auditing rooms. The access to them was through the stairs built to a side inside the main hall itself. One climbed up the stairs to a low ceiling balcony. One had to cross the length of the balcony to the farther auditing room. A thick, metal hook protruded from the center of the low ceiling of that balcony.
I became aware of that metal hook only after my head struck it as I followed my auditor to the auditing room. I was stunned for a moment and stopped in my tracks. The creaking of the boards under my feet stopped and the auditor turned around to see what happened. She came and held me by my arms and waited for a moment. Somebody else came running up too.
My forehead was not bleeding. The auditor gently pushed my head forward to contact the metal hook again. I was told to let my head contact the metal hook several times exactly the same way that my head struck it the first time, except in slow motion. I had to move back and retrace my steps several times as part of this exercise.
Soon the pain of the impact receded and the fascination with this bizarre exercise captured my attention. It was explained that this action was called CONTACT ASSIST. It helped eliminate the after affects of an injury due to impact. It was same as the Dianetic principle of re-experiencing traumas to eliminate their influence upon oneself. CONTACT ASSIST helped an injury heal much faster. I was given a short description of this procedure to read.
I recalled this Dianetic principle from my study of the book DMSMH (Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health). It was a principle similar to the principle of de-hypnotizing a person. Say, a young man was hypnotized and told by the operator that whenever the operator touched his tie, the young man would feel as if his feet were on fire. The young man was then told that he would not remember this suggestion after he was brought out of hypnotic trance.
Later, let’s say, both the operator and the young man went to a party. Everything was going just fine until the operator touched his tie. The young man immediately started to feel as if his feet were on fire. He had seen the operator touch his tie but did not pay much attention to it as anything significant. However, that feeling of discomfort subsided as soon as the operator took his hands off the tie. But it would come back again whenever the operator touched his tie. Unbeknownst to him, this was a purely stimulus-response type reaction.
Now, let’s say, the operator takes the young man aside and shows him how it is the stimulus of touching his tie that causes the response of discomfort in his feet. As the young man observes this reaction happen again and again in a mechanical way in response to the same stimulus he may suddenly recall this association being established in the hypnotic session he had. At the moment of that realization, that hypnotic suggestion will suddenly lose all its influence to affect the young man. This phenomenon may be called de-hypnotizing.
Dianetics had found that injuries and losses that one suffered in life created traumas (engrams) that had the power to influence the person the way this hypnotic suggestion did. Such engrams created a condition for the individual that was much less than optimum both physically and mentally. A realization of the exact time, place, form and event of the moments of such injuries and/or losses then relieved a person of their adverse influence, thus restoring the person back to an optimum condition. This was the DIANETIC PRINCIPLE.
After completing my contact assist I proceeded to the auditing room. My first auditing session was a short one. I was asked to hold two cans connected to an E-meter. Then I was asked some questions about my present condition. I was allowed to speak all my concerns without interruptions or evaluations. I had the feeling that what I was saying was understood fully by the auditor. It allowed me to look deeply at my condition. The time passed swiftly. When I was done saying all that was on my mind about my condition, the auditor indicated, “Your needle is floating.”
In my naiveté, I understood that to mean that all my problems were now resolved. That was so quick, I thought. At that moment, I felt that way anyway. I went down the stairs with bouncing steps and announced to all the people in the room, “I have a floating needle.”
I was walking on air. But little did I know what was to come next.
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