21. POSTULATES
The ultimate ability is simply to postulate things.
A postulate is simply a projected decision or mockup. I say projected because a key factor is the space permeated by the decision. If a decision about Paris permeates the space of New York, it can only affect the relationship of New York to Paris and will not act on Paris directly. Even a postulate which permeates the space it is intended to effect is not all encompassing because there will be things outside of the target location which also affect the target. And so we have a relative degree of action which is monitored by the space encompassed by the postulate.
One of the common failings of positive visualization techniques as used in metaphysics is that the postulate or mockup usually only permeates the person's head or his immediate vicinity rather than being projected out into the physical universe at large. And even if the person does get it out into a broader sphere, he often runs afoul of his own "subconscious" machinery which is projecting some contrary postulate, often from 4th and 5th dimensional locations which he has carefully hidden from himself.
These factors can be handled. You can drill precise placement of postulates, decisions, and mockups. You can drill permeation of broad and narrow areas. You can work on locating stuff you have hidden in various places and make decisions in those locations. You can run "From Where ..." style processes to spot places where you are projecting things and get them back under control.
When you put out a postulate, if you put aside all wishful thinking, you can feel whether or not the postulate has taken hold. If it doesn't, you can start spotting and running things that are blocking it until it does take hold. Once the postulate does stick, you can search for and predict and handle counter postulates coming in from outside of the postulate's direct sphere of operation.
Note that this is a game of relative cause and effect. There are many individuals and a constantly shifting flux of interacting postulates. There are no absolutes, neither in physical laws nor in the power of individual thetans. The only absolute is the sum total of theta which exists only at the top and which is not attainable by an individual viewpoint by definition (because it encompasses all individuals).
Note that this is not the same as wishing or praying in the usual sense. These are generally at effect rather than at cause. In other words they are an inflow rather than an outflow. As such, they are no more than begging or hoping or depending on gaining favors from a higher power. But don't discount these things entirely because sometimes you will have someone who will project and they are postulating very strongly even if they call it praying or wishing real hard.
Somebody pleading with God to heal them is not liable to get very much out of it. But some of the faith healers call to God for the power to heal and then they project like the dickens and this kind of action can bring about miracles.
There is the idea that earlier postulates are senior to later ones. This is completely false but has been heavily implanted so as to keep people under control.
But you will not let a later postulate override an earlier one if the earlier one is out of sight and forgotten and is doing things that you're not sure that you can do without. This gives your old hidden postulates some degree of precedence not because they are more powerful or irrevocable but only because you're afraid of the consequences of undoing them.
There are a couple of approaches to handling this.
One way is simply to research out all of your earlier postulates until you are completely aware of them and therefore can change your mind about them without reservation. In other words, cleaning up your past track.
Another is to regain awareness of your full self and what you are doing on all levels so that you can see the complete view of all of your postulates in present time. This would proceed from simple confront of your environment and everything you have been blocking and suppressing and go on through regaining awareness of the various split pieces of yourself and all the machinery you have mocked up in various spaces.
A third approach would be simply to change your mind about the right things at a deep enough level to eliminate the need for holding the various barriers in place. This has the problem of knowing the right sequence and the right things to decide, and most of the preaching and moralizing (decisions to be good, etc.) doesn't really lead you in the right direction.
Each of these three methods is a bit too difficult all by itself and the workable approach is to switch off between them. Whenever you get stuck with one, you use another to get you past the stuck point. Everything we are doing in this subject has one or more of these three underlying it.
It would be nice to simply make one super postulate which would take you all the way out, but it doesn't work that way.
The absolute postulates are the underlying nature of theta and they are:
a) Not only are you nothing but you never existed in the first place.
AND
b) You are everyone and everything.
You can make these two postulates or variations of them, but it doesn't do you much good. If you do make one of them (and that means being it, not simply thinking it), you become the static and then immediately postulate yourself right back here with everything intact because there is no gain in having fewer of us.
Another way of looking at this is to realize that these two things are both true, and they are both absolutes, and they are mutually contradictory. What results from holding two contradictory absolutes in place is a flux or half-state and this is the sum total of existence as we know it. Since these two postulates are always in place, you are not really making a new postulate by mocking one of them up. You are just recognizing or reinforcing what already is there. You might get over to one or the other of these two for a moment, but its only half of the truth, so you end up back in the flux again.
It might, however, be useful to drill holding both ideas simultaneously since this does approximate the actual state of affairs. Note that this would be holding both at once in the same space rather than thinking them alternately or in different locations. Any drilling of the ability to hold contradictory ideas or postulates simultaneously might be of benefit.
Our real target is a near-ultimate state which is just a hairsbreadth short of the absolutes. This would give maximum ability, interest, and games. But that means undoing the structure carefully instead of simply tossing it all away. Postulates to jump into such a state directly fail because it goes into conflict with just about every hidden postulate that you're still holding on to, and if you let them all go at once you get the absolute (as discussed above) instead of the near absolute state.
But we do know quite a few decisions that are capable of knocking out lots of undesirable old postulates without having to address them directly.
For example, deciding to take responsibility, deciding to forgive others and abandoning ideas of vengeance, deciding to increase motion rather than stopping things, are all key postulates that will undo lots of undesirable stuff that you are holding in place.
Taking this a little further, if you are thirsting for vengeance, then you need to hold all sorts of postulates in place about suffering consequences. And that means that when you make a postulate to get away with something, it can't stick because you wouldn't unmock the postulate for vengeance.
Unfortunately, it doesn't usually work to try and talk people out of these things and beating sense into people just lays in another layer of unawareness. So we mostly have to work at running things out and confronting the present time environment. But the person will occasionally just change his mind of his own free will, and if they have a good understanding of what direction to move in, then they have a shot at shaking loose some of this stuff wholesale.
That is how you get those big key outs on some people when they join a subject (not just Scientology, but anything that shows them a higher view of existence). The person simply gets exposed to new ideas, sees things in a new light, and simply changes his mind about some things and a whole section of aberration falls away.
But this can't be forced. If you coerce Joe into making the exact same decisions that set Bill free, it will not work. Let's say that Bill did decide to abandon vengeance. And lets further say that he decided for his entire self and his full existence even though he doesn't have any conscious awareness of more than about 5% of himself. Now you beat up Joe and he also decides to abandon vengeance, but his decision is only for that tiny bit of conscious awareness and that little body that you just kicked around and the rest of him (about 95%) is not only thirsting for vengeance but has added you to the list of people to be gotten even with.
The road out by simple postulates and making the correct decisions cannot be pushed on another, but can be done by free choice. Maybe someday we'll have a full list of the decisions that work to get you out. Meanwhile, you need judgment and understanding.