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The Five Levels
The practical work is divided into five sections. Each section has its own purpose, and subsequent sections build upon the abilities developed in earlier sections. Thus, you start at Level one and proceed on through to level Five, where you stay thereafter until the job is done. (I will explain in a moment how most people can enter at Level Two).
No benefit is to be gained by skipping one or more levels, for no further progress can be made until the missed level or levels have been completed. Just as you can ruin a good mystery story by reading the last chapter first, so too can you ruin a good set of exercises by starting them at Level Five. Either nothing will happen at all, or the exercise will put you in hospital. The former is much more likely, but I wouldn’t take a chance on it if I were you.
Level One
These are exercises devoted to the discovery of, and improving the reality of present time.
Level Two
These are exercises devoted to the discovery of the past, and its evaluation to present time.
Level Three
These are exercises devoted to the general timebreaking of ‘then’ to ‘now’.
Level Four
These are exercises devoted to the discovery and timebreaking of the eight classes of overwhelm.
Level Five
These are exercises devoted to the creation of conflicting and complementary postulates in conjunction with the Postulate Failure Cycle Chart.
If this step needs running it can only be successfully completed by a separate therapist. As the being goes into a more and more compulsive games condition with his own mind he becomes more and more fixated upon it, and less and less in contact with the realities of present time. His actions become more and more strange and irrational until, eventually, for his own safety and the safety of those around him, he has to be institutionalized. Everyone who has a mind is in a compulsive games condition with it, and therefore to some degree out of touch with the realities of present time. It is entirely a matter of the degree to which he is out of touch.
There is a make-break point beyond which contact with present time is so slight that any attempt to contact the past will dangerously lessen this tenuous contact, and so easily precipitate a psychotic break. The first step is always contact with present time; only when this is above the make-break point is it safe for the being to contact his past. This is true whether the being is working solo or with a separate therapist. In that the being is never aware that his contact with pt has fallen below this make-break point, we see the reason why Level One is, perforce, a separate therapist step. Its never easy for a being to be aware that he’s not aware, which is why you will find a higher proportion of people totally convinced of their sanity inside insane asylums than you will find outside. Their delusional system has become pt to them, and as they know they are in contact with this they ‘just known’ they are sane. Your truly sane person has no such certainty - merely much positive evidence.
Fortunately, only a small percentage of humanity are below this make-break point, and most of those have a long history of being in and out of institutions. However, there are a few below this point who may have no such history; they are those who possess a ‘sane’ delusional system. The state is appropriately known as computational psychosis. The being gives all the apparency of being highly sane - if a little too ‘fixed’ in his ideas. As long as he’s not subject to under stress he lives a completely normal life. But he’s a walking powder-keg, likely to disintegrate at any moment. Too much stress can at any time precipitate a psychotic break in such a person. (What is sometimes politely referred to these days as a ‘nervous breakdown’). He’s immediately hospitalized. Often he recovers - and five years later disintegrates all over the place once again. And he’ll continue to do so as long as he maintains such a highly charged games condition with his own mind, and the consequent tenuous contact with the realities of present time.
So only a tiny proportion of humanity require Level One to be run, but if its necessary it must be run before Level Two is attempted. For the mere attempt to do Level Two can precipitate the psychotic break.
It would be terribly easy for me to say: Well, we have a fine test for Level One. Let him try Level Two; if he spins he was Level One. It is a test, but hardly a humane one. Fortunately there is a better test - and an entirely humane one. It sorts out those who are below the make-break point without spinning them. (The test is in the next section.)
The Level One needs to improve his contact with and reality of present time before he can attempt Level Two safely. Its as simple as that; nothing else is involved. There’s nothing wrong with his neurones or psychones; its purely between him and pt physical universe. The Level One is, because of his compulsive games condition with his own mind, too far out of touch with the realities of present time to safely attempt Level Two without running the danger of being utterly overwhelmed by his mind, and suffering a psychotic break. In order to contact his mind he has to take a little bit of attention off present time. That may be more attention than he can afford - and so he’ll spin.
I’m mentioning this at great length for obvious reasons: I don’t want people spinning on Level Two. Particularly when Level One exercises are available from any competent therapist who is trained to use them.
Undoubtedly the foremost experts at this level are the Scientologists, and their ‘CCH’ exercises are excellent in achieving the desired result. So if you need Level One running, go and see a Scientologist and tell him you want the ‘CCH Processes’ run. He’ll be happy to oblige, and you’ll derive enormous benefit from these simple exercises. Then you can start in solo at Level Two.
These are exercises devoted to the discovery and timebreaking of the eight classes of overwhelm.
The Repair of Importances (RI). The Governor.
Before we go into Level Two I’d like to introduce you to The Governor. This is a simple exercise that will stay with you during the rest of your solo work. The response to this exercise also determines whether or not its safe for a person to undertake Level Two, or will require to complete Level One first. People who fail the test yet insist upon continuing with Level Two do so entirely at their own risk. I can only warn you of the dangers, not insist that you abide by my warning. If you successfully pass the test, The Governor will always get you out of any difficulties the exercises may get you into. However, only a person who doesn’t need Level One running can make the Governor work for them, and so has this guarantee. I trust I’ve made my point.
The being, becoming more and more enmeshed in the compulsive playing of games and their accompanying importances, first becomes surrounded with them and then, by contagion, believes that he needs them. Thus he is in the frame of mind of needing to be surrounded by importances. As that which is considered important tends to persist and become more solid, we find the being in the state of actually believing that he needs to be surrounded by mass and solidity (Its the importance he craves, not the mass and solidity.) This soon reaches the point where he feels bad if this mass begins to vanish. Left to himself he solves any scarcity by pulling in around himself more old mental masses. As these old mental masses also contain various unpleasant sensations (pain etc.), he will pull in upon himself these things in order to be surrounded by the accompanying mass. Its an incredible mechanism, and explains so much of life. For example: problems and solutions. The being gets to the stage where he literally cannot afford to solve a problem without first ensuring that his solution will create a larger problem for him than the original problem. (He always likes to be on the safe side, and be sure that his ‘importance quotient’ doesn’t diminish.) His life becomes like one of those old Laurel and Hardy films, where, in endeavoring to solve a simple problem a larger one is created, and in attempting to solve that... etc. The audience used to curl up in laughter at their antics - then promptly go home and do much the same things themselves! I wonder how many wives have regretted asking their husbands to replace a tap washer - as they stood viewing the smoking ruins of the family home?
The exercises from Level Two onwards tend to dissolve mental mass at an accelerating rate. Thus, the exercise is at variance with his compulsion to be surrounded by mass (importance). This is a very real dilemma, and there is only one final solution to it:
The being must replace the old mass (importance) with mass of his own creation.
In this way he can do the exercises which vanish the unwanted mental mass without compulsively pulling in around himself further unwanted mental masses to fill the vacuum so produced. In the final instance this is the only way that he will ever ‘let go of’ his mind. While he is in the frame of mind of needing importances, he will never permit one to vanish until he is assured that he can easily replace it with another.
Early on the being is like a prisoner who has been incarcerated in a cell for all of his life. He has come to believe that he needs the walls of his prison, and if suddenly freed will demand to be locked up once more; failing this he will rush into the nearest room, slam the door after him, and hide. This mechanism is well known by prison authorities who have to deal with long-term prisoners; it is one of the hidden benefits of the parole system.
Right now you are like such a long-term prisoner regarding your own mental mass. You’ve come to believe that you need it, and so will pull in round yourself more mental mass to replace that which the exercises causes to vanish. Thus, we have to repair the importances we vanish with self-generated importances or the being will soon get himself into a frightful mess. He will find himself in possession of highly persistent aches and pains he knows not what of, as well as a host of other unpleasant emotions and sensations. This mechanism, if not understood and allowed for, will sooner or later bring any psycho-therapy to a grinding halt. The researcher was thus led to believe that his therapy was of no use; when, in fact, it was working all too well...
So, the Repair of Importances. (RI).
Commands:
a) Bring something into existence.
b) Have another bring something into existence.
a) is run over and over until there is no more change; then b) is likewise run. Then a), and then b) again, until both produce no more change. The creations should be placed around you 360 degrees spherical. You don’t have to do anything with the creations; the act of creation is sufficient. Quality of creation is far secondary to quantity of creation; abundance is of the essence. There are alternate commands:
a) Create something.
b) Have another create something.
The word ‘create’ is for many an emotionally charged word, and these people will find the preceding commands easier. They mean the same thing.
Third alternative:
a) Create an importance.
b) Have another create an importance.
Many will prefer this set, and should use it.
In passing, those who have followed the theory so far will have realized that one sure way to louse a being up is to convince him that he cannot create. Once he is convinced of this lie he is, of course, trapped forever - not only in the universe, but in the compulsive playing of games. In the final instance only his creativity will free him. Thus, the ‘entrappers’ of this universe basically sing only one song: ‘Thou cannot create’. They don’t have to sing any others; this one is quite sufficient to do the trick. Its a mournful dirge and appears under a myriad guises.
While running RI it is not necessary to perceive ones creations. The certainty that one has created is sufficient. Lack of perception is a very poor proof of non existence. (There are many Chinese stirring their rice pots in Peking right now. The fact that you cannot perceive them doing so is no proof that they aren’t there doing it.)
Early on many beings find themselves plagued by ‘non-perception’ screens, which prevent them from perceiving their own creations. As you progress through the levels you’ll become more and more aware of these screens. Finally you’ll vanish them, and thereafter be able to perceive your own creations. Some beings have always been able to perceive their own creations - often in glorious Technicolor - and will wonder why I’m making such a fuss about all this. These notes aren’t for you, but for the being who has got himself backed up hard against a ‘no-perception’ screen - either one of his own, or someone else’s. (Refer to Theory Section for more detailed info. on the subject of screens).
There is another class of RI called RI by perception. This is where the being repairs his scarcity of importances by increasing his contact with, and reality of, an existing importance in the pt physical universe. As any solid object has a residual importance postulate within it, we therefore see that a being can repair his scarcity of importance by physically contacting such a solid pt physical universe object. Grasping such an object with your hands and feeling its solidity, temperature, texture etc., will repair importance. Many beings who have difficulty with the creative RI commands will be able to use RI by perception. Any being who can use the creative RI exercises will also be able to use RI by perception, but should use the creative version by preference. Any being who can only use RI by perception early on should from time to time during the Levels have another go at the creative versions. Sooner or later one will ‘click’, and thereafter should be used in preference to the RI by perception method. The only difference between the two methods is that in the creative version the being is actually generating the importance. He’s got to be able to do this eventually, and the sooner he gets onto it the better. RI by perception will work alright up to the top of Level Four, but Level Five, being intensely destructive of mental mass, really does require the creative version to permit its successful completion.
The immediate effect of running RI is to de-intensify any compulsive games condition you are currently engaged in, whether with your mind or with life in general. It ‘cools’ the game. Thus, the exercise is an extremely valuable one for a being to use at any time. It de-intensifies stress of all types, and is infinitely preferable to the taking of drugs for this purpose. Use it. (Just before you sink the meat-axe into your mother-in-law’s skull pause and run a little RI; you’ll find you’ll be able to put the axe away.)
RI also has this remarkable property:
You cannot over-run it.
Being an entirely natural ability of life, its quite impossible to harm yourself in any way by running RI. It stops producing change after a while, but further running of it does not produce over-run symptoms.
However, RI can be badly under-run when it is required. This is a definite pitfall, and one you should avoid.
The main use of RI during the exercises is to act as a lubricant. It keeps things going smoothly. It should be used in generous amounts. It must be used at the following times:
a) Between the ending of one exercise and the start of a new one.
b) At the end of every session.
c) At the beginning of every session.
d) During the session if the going gets rough - i.e.. you suffer an intolerable amount of unpleasant sensation.
Bluntly, these exercises will not work in the absence of RI (Level One is the only exception to this, but as Level
One is almost entirely perceptual RI the rule still applies). In the absence of RI the exercises will very soon
grind to a shuddering and rather painful halt.
When in doubt - run RI. Whenever you run creative RI in session always run both commands to no further change. Do not leave it while it is still producing change. The second command is just as important as the first. Do not leave either while they are still producing change. The exercise will ‘run down’ your stock of importances; use RI to repair it. Thus, although RI is run to no further change, just the doing of the exercise will make it produce changes once more. Early on your tolerance of loss of importance is very slight, so RI will have to be run frequently; later your tolerance increases enormously, and you have a much wider latitude in these things. However, never will you be entirely free of the necessity to run RI as an adjunct to the exercises until you’ve got to the very end of Level Five and achieved Nirvana.
The Test.
We are now in a position to determine whether or not you can begin at Level Two, or will require to complete Level One.
The test is very simple. Just work your way through the list of RI commands. Creative ones first. Give each pair a good run before you move on. You are looking for changes. Any changes. If it produces any change its a usable RI command. If none of the creative list produce a change, then up on your hind legs and start getting your paws into contact with the walls and floors and tables in your room right now. OK. You found one? Good. Now run all the change out of it. I don’t care how long it takes. Run all the change out of it; run it until its strictly ho-hum. Good. Feel better? Fine. You’ve now ‘topped up’ your reservoir of importances; and are ready for Level Two.
Alright, I haven’t forgotten you others. Don’t tell me: nothing happened. It all seems silly, does it? Tell me, Did running perceptive RI make you feel a wee bit queasy in your stomach? Touching all those solid objects? It did? Good. Continue with it until you feel relaxed once more. You are up to doing Level Two. Just make with the paws on the furnishings for an hour or two; it will work wonders for you. However, if you don’t feel up to it, then go and see a separate therapist who is skilled in Level One exercises and let him help you do it.
And, finally, those to whom absolutely nothing happened at all during the test. You aren’t up to tackling your
mind solo right now. Don’t try it - it could put you in hospital. You need Level One. Go see a separate therapist
and get it run. But don’t let him ‘tinker’ with your mind until Level One has been properly run, for even with
a separate therapist its not entirely safe for you to do so until Level One has been completed - even though he
has a sympathetic ear, and a nice leather couch for you to rest your bum on. Get Level One run, and I’ll see you
later - all chittered up and ready to tackle Level Two solo. (Oh yes, when Level One is properly nulled you’ll
find one of the RI commands will work for you).
Purpose: To find the past. To exercise the being in evaluating the past to the present.
Now I’ll be brutally honest with you. If you need this level running badly its going to hurt. It all depends upon how severe the compulsive games condition is between you and your mind. If you’re rather chummy with your mind the exercise will be a breeze, and you’ll enjoy it as well as deriving benefit from it. However, if you are a mass of so-called repressions and inhibitions you are in for a hot time of it. You’ll probably be absolutely sure that you are going to die before you’ve got your teeth a couple of inches into this Level. There’s nothing like Level Two to separate the men from the boys. Crack this one, and the rest is easy. However, the Level must be done, for there’s no other way to get a being to be able to Timebreak.
Use RI liberally. Don’t be a martyr - run RI when the going gets rough; you’ve nothing to gain by suffering any more than you have to. This Level is designed to crack the compulsive games condition you are currently in with your own mind. It does it with ruthless efficiency - to the full extent you are currently capable of achieving. But I’ll tell you this: once you come out the other end you’ll have lost all fear of your own mind. You’ll know with absolute certainty that there’s nothing it can do to you that you can’t handle. You’re over the biggest hump. The being who has successfully completed Level Two has said good-bye to separate therapists: he now knows he can do what has to be done alone. If this technology ever becomes lost to mankind it will only be because some faint hearts could not confront the horrors of Level Two, and so will change it all into something pleasant - and useless. Never miss it: Level Two is the only barrier that sits between mankind and the attaining of Nirvana. He cannot face Level Two, and so he goes to a separate therapist to help him through it - never realizing that by so doing he has negated his own responsibility in the matter, and so doomed himself to failure. He must do this step alone, or he’ll never be able to cock a snook at his own mind; there is no other choice.
So Level Two will be a baptism of fire for many of you. So be it. Press on. I’ve known the successful completion of this Level to cure chronic alcoholism in a being all by itself, so the results are well worth attaining. Remember: you’ve lived through the original of whatever your mind has to throw up at you, so you can live through the recall of it, The last thing you do before you expire is - run RI. Then you won’t expire. Get it? Then you continue on with the exercise. Get it?
Commands:
a) Select a non-significant past scene.
(Masochists can select a significant one.)
b) Select an object from this scene.
c) Find an object in pt (one you can see with your eyes) that is different from the past object.
d) How is it different?
Repeat c) and d) (Its permissible to use the same pt object over and over again if you wish) until no more change;
then:
e) Find an object in pt (one you can see with your eyes) that is similar to the object in the past scene.
f) How is it similar?
Repeat e) and f) until no more change, then repeat c) and d). Continue until both c) and d), and e) and f) produce
no more change.
g) Select a new past object, either from the same past scene or a different one.
Repeat c) and d), then e) and f) with this new past object until no more change.
Continue the exercise, using more and more significant past objects, until no more change occurs with any past
object you care to select. Now do the exercise with past persons. Select them one at a time, and complete the exercise
with each person. Continue until no more change occurs with any past person you care to select.
As you do this exercise, and the compulsive games condition between you and your mind begins to break down, you’ll find that it becomes progressively easier to place the ‘then’ and ‘now’ objects side by side for comparison purposes, until you are quite easily able to view both the ‘then’ and ‘now’ objects simultaneously. You are learning to Timebreak. By the time the exercise has gone null you’ll be an expert Timebreaker. Don’t rush the exercises; nothing is to be gained by so doing. Once started on a past object or person you should persist with the object or person. To change around all the time will not make it easier for you; you are just prolonging the agony - and the exercise. Run the changes out as you go, that is always the fastest way.
Remember: you are running out a compulsive games condition between you and your own past. The exercise continues
to produce changes as long as this compulsive games condition is highly charged; as the compulsive games condition
quietens down, so the exercise ceases to produce change. You end up feeling quite different about your past - quite
friendly towards it - as well as being a competent Timebreaker, and so ready for Level Three.
General Timebreaking.
Timebreaking. Definition: The simultaneous viewing of ‘then’ and ‘now’.
If Level Two has been properly done then Level Three will be easy. Its just a romp around your past; learning your skills and applying them. However, if you’ve skidded off Level Two and hope to find salvation in Level Three I have some bad news for you. Either nothing will happen, or all the things you hoped to avoid will come back and haunt you at Level Three. And, whatismore, you’ll be stuck with them from here on out. You’ve either ‘cooled’ this compulsive games condition you are in with your past at Level Two, or you haven’t. Level Three is no place to be playing this sort of game. Simply because while you are still playing this game you cannot effectively Timebreak, so the exercises will not benefit you. So, if in doubt about whether Level Two is finished, then its not finished and you must go back and finish it. Then, and only then, will Level Three help you.
Once Level Two is complete the being is able to comfortably place ‘then’ and ‘now’ objects side by side for comparison purposes. Indeed, it will be found that the comparison has become largely automatic. Once he so places them the comparison occurs almost instantly. This is as it should be. A being cannot view through time; this is an illusion. He can only view across a distance. Everything you view, you view right now. The action of simultaneously viewing ‘then’ and ‘now’ breaks the illusion of time. It literally breaks time - Timebreaking. While the being continues to try and compare the ‘then’ and ‘now’ objects while still considering them in different moments in time he never achieves a full comparison; thus, he never achieves a true evaluation of their relative importance, and the ‘then’ object still retains a residual command power over him. Once Timebroken, the command power of the ‘then’ object is vanished forever. This cannot be done until the illusion of time is broken: the illusion of time is broken once it is done. There’s nothing mystical about this; its all good, solid natural law. How can his past influence him if his past is now in the present? Flip... See it?
Commands:
a) Select a past scene. Become simultaneously aware of the scene and pt around you. Don’t try and Timebreak all of the scene at once. Take it a bit at a time. Continue to do this until the past scent ‘fades’ - i.e.. begins to ‘fall away’ in intensity compared to present time.
b) Select a new past scene, and repeat a).
Continue until you are willing and able to Timebreak all your known past.
This exercise will take many hours - joyful hours! - and you are gaining all the way. The past will first be found to become increasingly intense in perceptics, then to progressively vanish. As the Level nears completion you’ll be hard put to find new scenes to Timebreak, and will be searching for them. This is quite normal. Run RI as necessary. The exercise is not particularly destructive of importances - compared to Level Two, say - but RI will speed your progress considerably. Every so often you’ll come across a scene that just will not Timebreak. Not to worry. Just roll up your sleeves and drop back to Level Two regarding it and start finding some differences and similarities between the scene and present time. suddenly it will flip out easily. Run a bit of RI at this point. You’ve found a ‘sticker’. There’s something in that scene; more to it than meets the casual gaze. You’ll be picking that one up again later on Level Four or Five. At this stage we are only interested in Timebreaking it.
As you get well into this Level Three don’t be shy about having a good nosy around in these past scenes. They are your past, you know. Spread yourself out and have a good look around. Go take a walk through these scenes. Find a scene with a bus in it; get on the bus and see where it takes you. You’ll be amazed! Each scene is a complete universe at that moment in time. Its all there - if you care to take a look.
Tch, Tch. I shouldn’t have said this. Lets be more scientific. Here we go: During this Level, or the subsequent ones, you’ll find yourself occupying a viewpoint exterior to your body in present time; you’ll also find yourself occupying exterior viewpoints to the ones you occupied at the time during the past scenes. All this is quite normal. A being is natively capable of occupying any viewpoint he so desires in any scene, whether ‘then’ or ‘now’. This ability is returning to you. Very soon you’ll be continuously operating your body in pt from a viewpoint exterior to it - simply because its more comfortable and natural to do so. (Any you’ll do this despite the fact that science has conclusively proven that the ‘ego’ is nothing more than a figment of the brain!)
Although the past will progressively vanish during this Level, nothing is being lost except the enforcement to view it; any part of your past that has been Timebroken can easily be brought back into existence once more merely by desiring to view it.
As you complete this Level you will get your first preview of Nirvana. For the first time you will feel free of your past, and no longer feel it pressing around you; the endless ‘chatter’ of the mind will at last be still, and you’ll be able to experience the tranquillity of utterly still beingness. Unless you actually recall something your past will remain in a state of total vanishment. This, again, is as it should be. If you’ve been connected to a skin galvanometer during your exercises, the completion of Level Three will show the instrument now sitting quite motionless at 12,500 ohms for a male, and 5,000 ohms for a female. The needle is quite calm and lifeless. Indeed, from this point onwards the skin galvanometer will never move much again. It has served its purpose, and can now, if you wish, be discarded. Your perception of change is now equal to or superior to that of the instrument.
However, Nirvana is still a long way off. But you’ve now got your feet a couple of rungs up the ladder, and know which direction the ladder is taking you. Level Four will get you up another couple of rungs, and give you an insight into how you ever managed to get a mind in the first place.
Purpose: The systematic discharge of the eight classes of overwhelm.
The completion of Level Three signifies the end of your mind impinging upon you in session involuntarily. However, it will still be found to impinge upon you involuntarily in life to some degree - even if you are now capable of Timebreaking it back out of existence again as fast as it appears. You’ll find that you just cannot maintain your state of inner stillness amidst the hurly-burly of life. Away from life and alone, you can by Timebreaking get yourself to a state of total peace and relaxation in a matter of minutes; but you’ll find it difficult to maintain it while on the hoof, so to speak. Its now time to do something about this state of affairs. There’s clearly still things in that thar mind of yours that you know not what of. This is the whole subject of Level Four.
Once Level Three is complete you’ll find that you have to actively stimulate your mind in session before any of it will appear. What is happening is that its becoming more and more under your control, and less and less under the stimulus-response control of the environment. From this point onwards you can expect this tendency to increase. Eventually, only you will be able to stimulate your mind; the environment will have lost its power to do so. Level Four will start you in this direction, and Level Five will complete it. To do this we have to take up the whole subject of games. Playing games got you into the mess and the understanding of games will get you out of it once more. You used to be an expert games player. You are going to be an even greater expert very soon - so great an expert that you will see the futility of them, and so give them up for the infinitely greater joys of Nirvana. Never miss it: the route to Nirvana for the compulsive games player is through the voluntary playing of games and then out the other side. You don’t get there by running away from them and contemplating your navel. You get there by running through the whole gamut of games play in exercise form. That is Level Five. Level Four prepares you for this by getting you to take a look at the subject of overwhelms, for this is where a lot of your ‘livingness’ is tied up. You need to free this up before you embark upon the rigors of Level Five. Level Four will also vanish another large and unwanted chunk of your mind.
The eight classes of overwhelm:
| 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 9) |
Forced to know. Preventing from being known. Prevented from knowing. Forcing to be known. Forced to be known. Preventing from knowing Prevented from being known. Forcing to know. |
Command: Get the idea of being forced to know.
Just punch the concept into your mind, and Timebreak any incident that shows up. Don’t try and force the pace; just take your time. Now punch out the ‘Forced to know’ idea again. Get anything that shows up Timebroken. Continue with this command until nothing further shows up, and you’ve run it dry. Now run RI.
Now move to command number 2). Run it just the same as number 1).
Continue through the list. Run plenty of RI, for this Level tends to chop it up a wee bit.
When you’ve completed through to number 8), go back and start in again at command number 1). New material will show up.
Continue round and round the list until there is no further new material, and no further change. When in doubt - run RI.
As you work with these commands you will find that you are taking bits here and bits there out of incidents. That’s quite alright. Many upsetting incidences contain more than one type of overwhelm; really hot ones can contain all eight! You can see how it is that beings get into such a terrible mess with these things. One thing we known about games play: its never orderly; anything can happen - and sooner or later will. These overwhelms come apart best in the sequence I’ve given them. They come apart this way much better than trying to run the incidents in a consecutive time sequence. There’s nothing which says an incident has to be run in its strict temporal sequence; that is just being a slave to the illusion of time. The sequence you are using is the basic game sequence, the sequence in which the whole mind is stacked. That’s why it comes apart easiest this way. so run the sequence from 1) to 8), round and round, and you’ll get there fastest.
Early on only a few commands will produce material, then later other commands will spark off and produce for you. Soon you’ll be finding all commands more or less live. Just clean each one up thoroughly before you leave it. Then they all begin to fade, until finally you are unable to punch any new material into view for Timebreaking.
Level four is now complete. When it’s complete you are no longer bothered by any of the overwhelms on your known time track. If this is not the case, then Level Four is not complete.
Its as simple as that. Those eight commands are the complete list of overwhelms (upsets). There are none outside of that list. Just go round and round that list until the job is done. There are no inhibitions, repression’s, suppressions, withholds or anything else ever dreamed up by the tortuous minds of psychiatrists that is not one or other of those eight classes. You’ve got them all. Any you’ve got all those that have yet to be discovered, as well!
Just get the job done. It won’t take anywhere near as long as you think it will.
Good. You are now ready for the rigors of Level Five.
The environment is now virtually incapable of triggering your mind against your conscious choice. Only you can do it now - and even you are having trouble! Only the creation of raw postulates can take your further. That is the whole subject of Level Five.
Purpose: To exercise the being in the creation of complementary and conflicting postulates in accordance with the Postulate Failure Cycle Chart.
The completion of Level Four signals that the being is ready to work with pure postulates. In point of fact he has no choice in the matter, for only by the creation of postulates is he able to progress further. Nothing else is capable of stimulating his mind, and so producing material for Timebreaking. At Level Two the being only has to think of something in order to have mental mass flying round his ears. By the time Level Four is complete only the creation of raw postulates will trigger his mind in the slightest. This is as it should be. Raw postulates are very rare things in life these days - which is precisely why the being’s mind is so little triggered by life once Level Four is completed. Humanity at large does not create effects by direct postulates; they cannot use direct postulates; they work on ‘systems’ of getting things done. A man may shout and rave at you, but its all noise and bluster; the actual postulate content of his tirade is virtually nil. If he were capable at handling postulates he would speak in a whisper, and people would feel compelled to do as he asks... The power of the silent postulate. Mankind has many ‘systems’ of power. Wealth is one of them. It permits a man to make his postulates effective when the true power of his postulate is close to zero. As the being comes up the line he progressively abandons his ‘systems’ of power and returns to the direct postulate. And in so doing his life becomes incredibly simple and uncomplicated.
So when we reach Level Five we are, as they say, down to the nitty-gritty: the basic building blocks upon which the mind is built; the four basic postulates which go to make up life and games play.
A postulate is a causative consideration; it is a consideration which contains an intention that something will occur. (The flavor of its meaning is contained in the old Latin ‘postulare’ - to demand.) One creates a postulate like one creates anything else: one brings it into existence in a certain location in space. Early on you may like to surround your postulates with mass. That is quite alright. You can create them with pink stripes and funny hats on if you wish; they are, after all, your creations. Later on you’ll be able to do without the mass, and just create the pure postulate.
A being tends to feel at the completion of Level Four that there is very little of his mind left. This is not so. The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the mind is still there intact at the completion of Level Four. The illusion of vanishment only occurs because there are so few pure postulates in everyday life to stimulate the mind, so it stays out of existence. Get a spear through your guts and you’ll soon realize that you’ve got a lot of mind hanging around still - as those mental masses begin to fly around you once more. That spear, you see, is a bit of solid postulate, and will get things jangling once more.
So even though Level Four is complete we still have a residual hard-core of mind left, and our job on Level Five is to bring it into view so it can be Timebroken. As your power of postulate increases on Level Five, so you’ll be able to spring more and more of this into view; this in turn will improve your power of postulate even more, which will permit you to spring even deeper levels into view. And so on until the job is finally done. How capable will you be? I don’t know, for to the very best of my knowledge no one has got there yet. You write and tell me about it. I do known this, though: the sky is a lot higher than you think. Even when you can knock a couple of planets out of orbit with the whisper of a thought, you’re still only a babe in arms in terms of your full potential. Only life has ever put a limit to the ability of life.
One last word before we go into Level Five proper. Be sure you want to make the trip. There’s no going back, you know. Can you go back now and enjoy the games you played as a five year old? Once you walk this road you can’t get off it. My advice is to take someone with you, or you’ll soon be running a terrible scarcity of people to talk to about the really interesting things in life. If you don’t fancy yourself as a being with god-like abilities, on the other hand, then the top of Level Four is the place to quit. You are still more or less human, and Level Five will soon change all that.
Are you coming? Good! Nice to have you along.
At this point take out the Postulate Failure Cycle Chart and study it. I advise you to make your own copy of it on a piece of cardboard. This can be folded to fit into a plastic sachet, and so be carried around with you without getting all crinkly and dog-eared. The chart is worth studying, and there is always something to be learned by looking at it. Indeed, it will soon become a very valued possession. There is a great symmetry and beauty about the chart, which grows on you as you use it. There is a great oddity about this chart: It is almost impossible to remember it! Which is quite understandable once one begins to appreciate its true significance. (It took me six months to get it exactly right.)
The chart is divided into 8 major levels; each level is sub-divided into two sections. This gives us a total of 16 possible games situations regarding an effect. You’ll also notice that the chart is divided into Origin and Receipt, and Self and Others. Self and Others is self-explanatory. Origin means the originator in a game; Receipt means the responder in a game. Receipt responds to Origin; Origin causes Receipt to respond. Its purely a matter of who starts, or originates, the game.
So we have 16 possible game situations regarding an effect. There aren’t any others. (There’s a standing prize going for the first being who can find any!)
The 16 consist of 4 overt overwhelms, 4 motivator overwhelms, 4 origin of games, and 4 receipt of games.
Life goes from 8b to 1a; we work from 1a to 8b. Always. The reason for this is that later games occlude earlier ones. So we start late and go early. This means we are running life in reverse. You’ll soon get used to this, though early on it can be a bit puzzling. We don’t have any choice in the matter. Have you ever tried peeling an onion from the inside? You peel it from the outside inwards; you peel your mind the same way. Your mind is very much like an onion in this respect. If you want to waste time you’ll run the chart from 8b to 1a; its a great way to get nowhere fast. Its also a guaranteed way to put yourself into deep apathy. (Oh boy, if you really wanted to louse this Level Five up, that is one sure way to do it. Talk about booby traps...)
The being, in life, enters games with an effect at 8b; after many vicissitudes he quits playing games with this effect at 1a. No more games are possible with this effect once 1a is reached, as all four postulates are now in failure (overwhelm) both as SD and PD. Check it through and you will see that this is so. He now goes back in at 8b with a substitute effect, and starts the circuit all over again. (Talk about futility!) So the chart is really circular, and 8b should be folded round to join 1a forming a cylinder. (I believe there is something in Eastern religion called ‘The wheel’ which is similar to this. Or maybe they had this chart once out East and lost it...)
The next point is that the chart only shows the SD postulates. The PD postulates you have to put in yourself. There’s no difficulty in this, for they are always the complementary postulate to the SD postulate. To save you looking them up in the Theory Section the list follows:
| SD | PD |
| Must be known. Mustn't be known. Must know. Mustn't know. |
Must know. Mustn't know Must be known. Mustn't be known. |
Next I’d like to recap for you, so you are absolutely sure of what we are doing on Level Five. Its necessary to be very clear in your mind on the differences between the following life situations.
This is a complementary postulate situation. You look at a wall; the wall is there to be known, and so you know it. Its ‘be known’ and ‘know’; complementary postulates. This is not a game situation. There is no postulate conflict; all the postulates match up. I’ll leave it to you as an exercise to spot life situations for the other three sets on the above list. Remember: Complementary postulates enhance affinity; conflicting postulates detract from it.
This is a conflicting postulate situation. You look at a wall; the wall is there to be known, and you decide you don’t want to know about it. Its ‘be known’ and ‘not-know’; conflicting postulates. Thus, this is a game situation, for there is postulate conflict; the postulates are in opposition. I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to spot life situations for the other three sets on the above list.
This is identical to the voluntary game situation except that the game is compulsive. The being feels compelled to play it; he’s lost his freedom of choice in the matter. He sees the wall and has no choice but to ‘not-know’ it.
While the game is voluntary, the being can always end it by adopting complementary postulates. E.g.. He stops fighting the wall and adopts a ‘know’ postulate regarding its ‘be known’ postulate. End of game. All games can be ended in this manner. No exceptions. If you want to stop any game you are engaged in you only have to adopt the complementary postulate to the one being held by your opponent, and the game promptly ends. He too, of course, can end it by adopting the complementary postulate to yours. You cannot force any being into a game who insists upon adopting complementary postulates to your own. Thus, a being who is free from the compulsion to play games can never be forced into a game against his choice. He’ll play only as long as he wants to play, then, if you try and force him to continue, he’ll merely go into a complementary postulate situation with you. There’s nothing you can do about it. I mean, you can’t even complain that you’ve lost the game, for you’ve clearly won it! Or have you? For you never overwhelmed him. I leave you to ponder this, for it has a large number of interesting philosophical ramifications.
But what of the being in a compulsive games condition? Ah, he must go on playing. He cannot ever end the game. He’s in it for keeps. He must go on, and on, and on... Just like time goes on, and on and on in the universe. Now do you see what I mean when I say that in the absence of games, space and time cease to exist? The whole universe is kept chugging along through time and endless change by life engaged in a compulsive games condition. A being achieves Nirvana when he can adopt complementary postulates with the whole universe. Then, and only then, can he leave the universe and go in search of pastures new. Until that point is reached the being is always to some degree trapped in the universe.
The route out is from the compulsive playing of games, through the voluntary playing of games, to an ending of all games by the adoption of complementary postulates and so the achieving of a non game situation: Nirvana.
So let us be very clear about the direction in which we are travelling on Level Five. There is nothing wrong with playing games, for games are fun; but there is an awful lot wrong with having to play games. the trap is not in the playing of games. The trap lies in the fact that the playing of games leads to the compulsive playing of games. That leads straight into every trap this universe contains. We only have to return to the being his freedom of choice in the playing of games and the job is done.
Now, once more take out the Postulate failure Cycle Chart. The chart can be divided into 8 ‘games’ levels, and 8 ‘overwhelm’ levels. ‘Game’ and ‘overwhelm’ are all part of games, but we need to separate these levels from a practical point of view.
First, the game levels. In each one of these levels there are actually four postulates on the board (The term ‘on the board’ comes from the game of chess, and I use it in the sense of ‘in play’). There is your SD postulate (shown on the chart), your PD postulate (not shown on the chart); your opponent’s SD postulate (shown on the chart), and your opponent’s PD postulate (not shown on the chart) is where you are; your PD postulate is ‘out there’ where your opponent is. Your opponent’s SD postulate is where he is; his PD postulate is over where you are. You are trying to get him to adopt your PD postulate; he is trying to get you to adopt his PD postulate. If either succeeds an overwhelm occurs, and the game is lost or won; the overwhelmer is the victor, the overwhelmed is the vanquished.
The overwhelm levels. In each of these 8 levels there are only 2 postulates on the board: Those of the overwhelmer. His SD postulate is still where he is. His PD postulate is now entirely round the vanquished (who is convinced of it). The SD postulate of the vanquished has now gone off the board; with it, of course, goes the PD postulate of the vanquished. Both the SD and PD postulates of the vanquished are thus off the board (out of play) at the point of overwhelm. Where have they gone to? They are in failure: they are no longer considered tenable in that game. (The vanquished may resurge and play another game of this type later in time, but that game with that particular effect is lost in the opinion of the vanquished.)
So in all 8 game levels on the chart there are 4 postulates on the board, while in all 8 overwhelm levels on the chart there are only 2 postulates on the board.
In the overwhelm, the vanquished literally buys the PD postulate of the overwhelmer. He considers this PD postulate as his own. Thus, in every overwhelm we see a misownership of postulate. Its entirely a matter of conviction. The overwhelmed is now convinced that ‘ this is the way things are’ - and so misowns the PD postulate that overwhelmed him. However, as soon as he spots the misownership the overwhelm vanishes, and his own postulates reappear. But until he misowns the postulate the overwhelm never occurred! See it? Its all a matter of conviction. Its very necessary, when working at the overwhelm levels of the chart, to be aware of this overwhelm and the misownership of the PD postulate. These levels don’t come apart otherwise. Once the being has fully bought the PD postulate of his opponent in a life game, he now adopts it as his own SD postulate and moves to the next level upwards on the chart (towards 1a). In the exercises, however, once he frees the misownership at the overwhelm level he is able to move down (in the direction of 8b) to the next level of the chart, for these postulates are now once more available to him.
If you’ve been following this closely you’ll have realized that at the overwhelm level we have the semblance of a no game situation, for there is no longer any conflict between the postulates; they are, indeed, complementary. (Every torturer knows that sufficient torture will render his victim ‘compliant’. This is also why a being cannot immediately be free of the entrapping influence of past games by adopting complementary postulates in all directions in his everyday life. All he will succeed in doing is throwing himself into his past overwhelms. This is why the edict ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ is so incredibly difficult for a being who is heavily enmeshed in games to apply with any great benefit. I’m not saying its impossible, and is not a route out, but I am saying that, due to the overwhelm mechanism, its incredibly difficult to apply across the boards and so attain Nirvana. Level Five gets over this difficulty by simulating the overwhelm, and thus freeing the being from it; by playing these games in exercise form he comes to grasp the true nature of the factors involved, and thus is no longer influenced by them. It also gives him a look at his own overt overwhelms - which is quite salutary.
We are now almost ready to embark upon Level Five. However, before we do so a word about RI. Level Five is by far the most destructive of past importances of all the Levels. Mental mass is vanished at a truly startling rate. One would expect this to be the case, and we must be prepared for it.
I can tell you right now that the only thing that will cause Level Five to grind to a shuddering and painful halt for you is insufficient RI. Indeed, your total progress on this Level is determined by how regularly you repair your importances with self-generated ones. Perceptual RI is just not good enough at Level Five; only creative RI will do the trick. So sort one out if you haven’t already done so. If you’ve successfully completed Level Four one or other of the creative versions will now work for you.
This matter is so vital that I’m going to give you, here and now, the details of the Level Five Repair Session. I don’t have to be told that you’ll fall flat on your face sooner or later on Level Five. So I’ll tell you what to do when it happens. This is not me being pessimistic; its me being realistic. I wouldn’t expect any being to start feeling his way through these raw postulates without coming a cropper. You’ll learn how to do it properly - but only after you’ve got your teeth kicked in a few times during the process of learning. This Level Five Repair Session will quickly get you back in one piece again, and fit to carry on.
| a) | Stop doing Level Five exercises. |
| b) | Run RI until no further change. |
| c) | Timebreak all mental mass in view. If its not pt universe mass Timebreak it. Repeat b); then c). Continue to alternate b) and c) until all has quietened down, and there is no further change. |
| d) | Return to Level Five. |
The datum behind all this is: The only mistake on Level Five is to leave a level while its still producing change. (Over-run is not harmful at Level Five, for the exercises are entirely creative.) But. And get this very clearly. If RI needs running you don’t spot that the level is still producing change. And so you leave it. Bingo! Very soon it all collapses round you, and you are wishing that mum had given birth to anyone but you. So when it all falls apart you just know you’ve left a level before you should have done. After you’ve done the repair you go back and find the incomplete level. (It will stand out like a third ball on a greyhound). Then you run it fully. Then you move on. Until the next time it happens. But you’re learning all the time. Eventually you don’t make this mistake. And then Level Five runs like a well oiled dream.
So help me, there aren’t any other snags on Level Five. Just keep your importances topped up, Timebreak as you go, and you’ll win all the way. Its very easy to get terribly significant about Level Five - simple because you’ve got deep significances flashing around you all the time, and its too darned simple to reach out and grab one. (Old Mosman proverb: ‘He who grab at passing significances is running scarcity of them; he should run RI.’)
We now need to take up the sense, or meaning, of the word ‘must’ on the chart. With one exception the meaning is ‘got to’; its a striving to make the postulate effective. The only exception is at the overwhelm levels. At the point of overwhelm ‘must’ means to the being overwhelmed ‘cannot help but’; it echoes the failure of his postulate in the game. So keep this in mind as you work through the levels.
Now we come to the question of what effect do we use when running Level Five? We don’t. We don’t put up effects at Level Five. We only Timebreak effects at Level Five. At Level Five we only put up postulates. The mind throws up the effects, which we Timebreak. In this way we guarantee that we take the mind apart in the exact manner that it is available.
At Level Four you experienced the phenomena of taking bits from here and bits from there off you time track while using the 8 classes of overwhelm; well, at Level Five you will see the same phenomena occurring. The mind comes apart easiest in the sequence that it is available. This is not necessarily in its temporal sequence. There is no reason why it should come apart in a temporal sequence. Trying to make it do so is merely trying to fit the mind into someone’s preconceived idea of how it ought to come apart. Its one of these pieces of fiction that was dreamed up one day by a psychologist who’d never got closer to a mind than observing his guinea-pigs in their cages. Because man is such a slave to time it seemed reasonable, and everyone has been going along with the idea ever since.
But it just won’t do if you ever hope to get your mind apart cleanly and efficiently. You just have to take it apart in the sequence that its available. You just put up the postulates, Timebreak everything that shows up, then, when putting up the postulates produces no more change, you move on to the next level. Its as simple as that. In fact its so simple that you’ll have to resist the urge to make it more complicated.
When putting up these postulates don’t be miserly. There’s no shortage of them, you know. Churn out as many of them as you need. If they fade out, then create some more. Abundance is of the essence. Put them where you like. Just make sure you keep the ‘self’ postulates separated from the ‘others’ postulates that is all.
Early on you’ll find that as one level goes null you find yourself ‘sliding’ into the next level on the chart. Later this stops, and you have to do it all yourself. This, again, is as it should be.
One final point. As you move from level 4b to 5a, and from level 8b to 1a, you will feel a definite ‘flip’. This is the valence shift that exists between these levels. Early on it can be quite startling. Later you just note it in passing.
Don’t try and rush things at Level Five. There’s always an urge to race round and round the levels - rather like writing faster and faster so as to finish off before your pen runs out of ink. Resist this urge. Null each level as you go. One of the signs of over-run of a level is boredom; its a sure sign that its time you moved on. You’ll soon learn to strike that happy medium of leaving a level as soon as it goes null. Always run RI between levels. If a level is still live at session end, then pick up that same level again next session. Start your sessions with plenty of RI, then Timebreak out the day’s happenings, and off you go.
You’ll find quite a number of incidents that showed up at Level Three and Level Four showing up again at Level Five. You’re just taking more off them, that’s all. You’ll continue to do so until you’ve got the lot. Then they’ll Timebreak out completely and you’ll never have them cropping up again. (These are the ‘stickers’ I mentioned back at Level Three.) Indeed, very soon you’ll probably never even think of them again. They’ll have no more significance to you than the number of the bus ticket that you casually glanced at that wet Wednesday night back in 1962.
Just keep going round and round that chart, level by level, Timebreaking as you go, and running plenty of RI, and you’ll make it to Nirvana. Remember: There’s no place to go after Level Five. There’s no Level Six. And don’t get sidetracked into playing around with other goals. ‘To know’ is the granddaddy of them all. All the roads lead back to the goal ‘To know’. So stay on that one from beginning to end; and you get there fastest. (It took me a year of research to discover this truth, and there’s no need for you to waste time.)
____ xx ____
And now, a final word about these practical exercises. Don’t become an exercise-fanatic. You won’t get there any faster by making a hermit out of yourself in your urge to get there. Live your life too. Just fit your exercises into your normal life; that is always the best way.
Good Luck.
Dennis H. Stephens
Mosman NSW
Australia.
February 1978.
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