The Components of a Human Being

Every individual consists of four parts:

- The first part is the spirit, called in the Technology the Thetan;
- The second part is the Genetic Entity;
- The third part is the mind (or the Reactive Mind and Analytical Mind);
- The fourth part is the body (composed of MEST);

The greatest discovery of the Technology of Clearing, and its major contribution to the knowledge of Mankind, was the isolation, description, and development of the skills of handling the human spirit in July 1951 in Phoenix, Arizona. I established, as a scientific fact rather than a religious or humanitarian one, that what is the individual — the personality — can, at will, separate from the body and from the mind without causing the death of the body or any mental derangement.
In the past, there had been considerable discussion concerning the human spirit or soul, and various efforts to bring man under control were effective due to his almost complete ignorance of his own individuality. Spiritualists distinguished in man what they called the “Astral Body,” and learned to act through it to achieve their purposes. In the Technology of Clearing, however, the spirit was separated from what the spiritualists called the Astral Body, and these two things should not be confused. Just as you know that you are where you are at any given moment, you will also know this if you find yourself separated from your mind and body. Man did not discover this earlier, for, lacking the Technology of Clearing, he had very little reality on separating himself from mind and body; therefore, he perceived himself, at least partially, as his mind and body.
The entire cult of Communism is based upon the assertion that man lives only one life, that nothing exists thereafter, and that the individual has no spiritual significance. Humanity as a whole has been close to this condition for at least the past century. This is a very low-level state, excluding any true self-knowledge.

The Spirit

The Thetan is described in the Technology as something having no Mass, Wavelength, Energy, Time, or Location in Space except by its own consideration or postulate. The spirit, therefore, is not a thing. It is the creator of things.
The usual place of a Thetan is in the skull or at some point near the body.

A Thetan can exist in one of four states:

1. He can be completely separated from the body or bodies, or even from this universe.
2. He can be near the body and consciously control it.
3. He can be in the body (in the skull).
4. He can be in a “reversed” condition, in which he is forcibly Exteriorized and unable to return to the body.

There are various degrees of each of these four conditions. From the standpoint of man, the second condition is the most optimum.
A Thetan is subject to deterioration. This is not easily understood at first, since all his activity consists of considerations or postulates. He uses, through his postulates, various methods of controlling the body. That he actually can deteriorate is obvious; yet it is also a fact that at any moment he can regain his full abilities.
Since he associates beingness with mass and action, he will not conceive himself as having individuality or a name unless he is participating in one or more of the games of life.
The processes of the Technology can demonstrate this phenomenon to a person more or less rapidly, and one of the many goals of auditing is to Exteriorize the person and bring him into the second of the above-mentioned conditions, since it has been found that in this state he becomes happier and more capable 

Genetic Entity

In Scientology, the Soul is referred to as the Genetic Entity. It is viewed as the subtle caretaker of the body, ensuring that every organ functions correctly and that the physical system stays in harmonious order. The Genetic Entity guides the body’s natural processes and supports the Thetan—the spiritual being—in controlling and directing physical actions. Through this cooperation, the soul provides stability, continuity, and the essential link between spirit and the physical form.

That beingness not dissimilar to the Thetan which has carried forward and developed the body from its earliest moments along the evolutionary line on earth and which, through experience, necessity and natural selection, has employed the counter-efforts of the environment to fashion an organism of the type best fitted for survival, limited only by the abilities of the Genetic Entity. The goal of the Genetic Entity is survival on a much grosser plane of materiality.
Formerly referred to as the Somatic Mind. It has no real personality, it is not the “I” of the body. This is the “mind” of an animal, a dog or a cat or a cow.
That entity which is carrying along through time, that is making the body through the time stream, through the action of sex and so forth. 

The Mind

The mind is the system of communication and control between the Thetan and his environment. The mind is a network of communications and pictures, energies, and masses which are generated as a result of the Thetan’s activity in relation to the physical universe or to other Thetans. The Thetan organizes various control systems in such a way that he can continuously operate the body, and through the body, operate things in the MEST universe, as well as other bodies.
The most obvious part of the mind is acknowledged by anyone who is not in a severely aberrated condition. These are the mental image pictures. In the Technology, we call such a mental image picture a facsimile when it is a “photograph” of the MEST universe at some moment of the past, and a mock-up when it is created by or for the Thetan and does not contain a snapshot of the physical universe. We call a mental image picture a hallucination or, more precisely, an automaticity, when the person sees a picture that was created by another source.
Various phenomena are connected with this entity called the mind. Some people, when closing their eyes, see only darkness; others see pictures. Some see pictures generated by bodily reactions. Some people see only black screens. Some see golden lines. Others see spaces. But essentially, underlying this entire system called the mind are postulate and perception. Tens of thousands of new mental phenomena, previously unknown, have been easily classified within the Technology of Clearing.
The Thetan receives, through the communication system called the mind, various impressions, including direct recordings of the MEST universe. In addition, he receives impressions from past activity and, most importantly, he himself—being close to total knowingness—makes conclusions about the past and the future which are independent of the stimuli of the immediate present. The mind is not merely a stimulus-response mechanism, as was once asserted by the old Marxist psychology taught in universities.

The mind is divided into three main parts:

1. The Analytical Mind,
2. The Reactive Mind, and
3. The Somatic Mind.

The Analytical Mind

The Analytical Mind combines the perceptions of the immediate environment, the past (in the form of pictures), and computations for the future, arriving at conclusions based on the reality of the situation. The Analytical Mind integrates the Thetan’s ability to know with the conditions of his environment and leads him to independent conclusions.
It can be said that this mind consists of visual images both from the past and from the MEST universe, and it is controlled and directed by the knowingness of the Thetan. The key aspect of the Analytical Mind is awareness. It knows what it decides and knows what it does.

The Reactive Mind

The Reactive Mind is a stimulus-response mechanism, crudely constructed and operating under severe circumstances. The Reactive Mind never ceases to function. Pictures of a very low order are recorded by this mind from the environment even during certain states of unconsciousness. The Reactive Mind operates below the level of awareness. It is, quite literally, a stimulus-response mind: given a certain stimulus, it produces a certain reaction.
The entire subject of Dianetics is concerned primarily with this mind. Being a specific method of thinking, the Reactive Mind possesses such a low capacity for rational conclusion that we find in it those aberrated impulses which are regarded as personal peculiarities, eccentricities, neuroses, and psychoses. It is this mind which stores all the bad experiences that have happened to a person and brings them to bear again upon him in times of emergency or danger, dictating to him actions which were once considered “safe.” Since very little thought is involved in these operations, the methods of behavior dictated by the Reactive Mind are often not safe at all, but quite dangerous.
The Reactive Mind is completely literal in its interpretation of words and actions. Since it records pictures and impressions during moments of unconsciousness, any phrase uttered after a blow or shock may be taken literally by the Reactive Mind and later influence the body and the Analytical Mind. The mildest example of this mechanism may be seen in rigid training, where a fixed pattern is impressed upon the mind for future use when a specific stimulus is received.
A rougher and less workable condition is that of hypnotic trance, to which the mind can be subjected. Made more effective by fixation of attention, words can be immediately implanted directly into the Reactive Mind and will later act upon restimulation.
An even lower reactive level occurs when a person experiences physical injuries, drug effects, illness, pain, or any other states of unconsciousness. Phrases spoken near an anesthetized person may later exert an influence upon him. It is not necessarily the case that every single moment of an operation is precisely “photographed” by the Reactive Mind of the unconscious patient, but in fact most of these stimuli are recorded. Absolute silence near a person who is under anesthesia, unconscious, or in severe pain is essential if one wishes to preserve the mental health of that person or patient for the future.
Probably the most therapeutic occurrence that can take place with an individual in processing is the separation of the Thetan from the mind in such a way that the Thetan, free from compulsion and possessing total knowingness, can look at himself and his mind and act accordingly.
However, there exists one type of Exteriorization which is the most aberrative of all traumatic experiences. This is the condition in which an individual, through injury, surgical operation, or shock, comes so near death that he Exteriorizes from the body and the mind. This enforced Exteriorization is sudden, inexplicable to the patient, and in itself highly shocking. When such an event occurs to an individual, he will certainly suffer from that experience thereafter.
It can be said that if the Reactive Mind contains such sudden shock moments of enforced Exteriorization, it becomes more difficult later to exteriorize the individual by means of the Technology of Clearing. Nevertheless, modern processing overcomes this. The phenomenon of enforced Exteriorization is at times accompanied by bursts of energy in various facsimiles contained in the mind, which become intermingled within the Reactive Mind.
Thus, people begin to fear Exteriorization, and sometimes even become ill merely from discussing this phenomenon, since they were once forcibly exteriorized during some operation or accident. Enforced Exteriorization is a characteristic of death itself. Consequently, Exteriorization, or the separation of the soul, is commonly associated in the minds of most people with death. Yet it is by no means necessary to regard a person as dead if he has exteriorized, and it is quite certain that Exteriorization not accompanied by shock, pain, or compulsion is entirely painless. In fact, it is highly therapeutic.

The Somatic Mind

The third part of the mind is the Somatic Mind. This is an even heavier type of mind than the Reactive Mind, since it contains no thought whatsoever, but consists solely of actions. The impulses sent by the Thetan to the body, passing through the various mechanisms of the mind, reach the levels of consciousness, unconsciousness, and the endocrine level. The latter possess a set of methods for analyzing any situation and for giving direct responses to received commands.
Unfortunately, the Somatic Mind is subordinate to all the minds described above, and to the Thetan. In other words, the Thetan can influence the Somatic Mind independently. The Analytical Mind can influence the Somatic Mind. The Reactive Mind can influence the Somatic Mind. Thus we see that the neurons, glandular systems, muscles, and body masses respond to various impulses, each of which is of a lower order than the one above it. Therefore, there is nothing strange in the discovery of what we call a “psychosomatic” illness. This is a condition in which the Thetan is unaware of the Somatic Mind being overloaded with various commands or disturbances. The Thetan is also unaware of his participation in the actions of the Analytical Mind directed toward the body.
Since the Thetan is rarely aware of the Reactive Mind, the latter is free to operate on a pure stimulus-response basis, directly—without further recourse to higher levels—upon the neurons, muscles, and glandular systems of the body. Because the Reactive Mind can hold a fixed command in place and create disturbances within the Somatic Mind, it becomes possible for illnesses, strange pains, real physical disorders, and aberrations to exist without any awareness of them by the Thetan. This is what we call physical illness caused by the mind. In short, such illnesses are caused by sensations perceived by the Reactive Mind during moments of pain and unconsciousness.
Whether a facsimile was recorded by the mind while the Thetan was conscious or unconscious, the resulting mass of energy in the picture is of the same energy as that which you see in an electric light bulb or in the tongues of a flame. It was once thought that mental energy was different from physical energy. In the Technology, it has been discovered that mental energy is simply a finer, higher level of physical energy. This can be verified as follows: the Thetan can mock up mental image pictures and pull them into the body—thereby increasing the body’s mass—or throw them away—thereby decreasing the body’s mass.
Such verification has actually been performed, and it has been found that the mass, when actually measured on scales, added to or subtracted from the body by the creation of “mental energy,” can amount to as much as 15 kilograms. Energy is energy. It may have different wavelengths and different characteristics. Mental image pictures can affect the physical environment, and the physical environment can affect mental image pictures. Therefore, the mind truly consists of spaces, energies, and masses of the same order as the MEST universe, although lighter and differing in size and wavelength.
For a more complete picture of the mind, one should read the books “The Dynamics of Life – An Introduction to Dianetic Research” and “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.” These were written before the discovery of the higher levels of being and give a very full picture of the mind itself—its structure, and what can be done with and about it.

The third part of Man is the physical body.

It is best studied through such works as Gray’s Anatomy and other materials on anatomy. This is the field of the medical doctor and, usually, of the psychiatrist and old-school psychologist, who were mainly engaged in the cult of body worship. The body is a subject of purely structural study, and the actions and reactions occurring within its various structures are complex and highly interesting.
When Technology provided a foundation for biophysics, it did so because of the accumulation of discoveries concerning psychic energy, its interaction with physical energy, and the activities occurring in the body as a result of these interactions. Biophysics became possible only when it was discovered within Technology that a constant electrical field exists around the body, largely independent of the human mind but influenced by it.
The body exists in its own space. This space is created by anchor points. The collection of these anchor points can produce independent series of electronic flows, which can cause considerable discomfort to the individual. The balanced structure of the body—and even its coordinated functioning and physical characteristics—can be altered by changes in this electrical field that exists either at some distance from the body or within it. This electrical field dominates and governs the actual physical structure of the body.
Thus, the body is influenced not only by the three minds but also by its own electrical field. An experienced Clearing specialist can make this field perceptible to the average person and even adjust it, though this is far removed from the main task of a specialist. The use of electrical shocks on the body for any purpose is therefore extremely dangerous, and rational beings should never condone it. Indeed, the use of electrical shock has never been considered curative—it has always been a means to enforce obedience by violence, and as far as can be seen, it brings a person to the brink of terror at the prospect of total insanity.
Electrical shock disrupts the electronic field near the body, and it is always followed by a decline in health or physical difficulty. It never leads to anything other than hastening the approach of death. Those who apply electricity have claimed that if they are denied euthanasia, they must use at least partial euthanasia in the form of electric shock, surgical brain interventions, or drugs. These measures, however, in a very large percentage of cases, result in euthanasia, which is precisely what such individuals intend.
Knowledge of the psycho-physical structure of the body may be necessary for the treatment of the body, and such knowledge did not exist before the advent of Clearing Technology. The medical doctor achieves much by working with structure, biochemical substances, and in the areas of emergency surgery, obstetrics, and orthopedics—he is necessary to society. At the same time, medicine lacks even a definition of the mind and does not encroach upon the domain belonging properly to Technology. Each of the three parts of Man—the Thetan, the mind, and the body—is studied in its own way, but all three affect each other continuously and significantly. Of the three, the most important is the Thetan, for without the Thetan there can be neither mind nor life in the body, while without the body or mind, life still exists in the Thetan. The Thetan is the personality. You are you—in the body.
Many suppositions have been made in the field of Para-Technology of Clearing. Para-Technology includes all undefined and unexplored territories of life that have not been fully researched or explained. However, as research progresses, it becomes increasingly evident that all basic activity of life is the activity of the Thetan, and that in the absence of spirit, life ceases to exist.
In the insect realm, it has not been established whether each insect possesses its own spirit or whether one spirit controls vast numbers of insects. It is also not established how mutation and evolution (if they occur) take place, and there are only conjectures about the overall Creator of the physical universe, since Clearing Technology does not intrude upon the Eighth Dynamic.
Certain facts, however, are fully known. The first is that the individual himself is a spirit controlling the body through the mind. The second is that the Thetan is capable of creating space, energy, mass, and time. The third is that the Thetan can separate from the body without the body’s death and is capable of managing and controlling it from outside—this is Exteriorization. The fourth is that the Thetan does not care to remember the life he has lived after parting from that body and that mind. The fifth is that a dying person always Exteriorizes. The sixth is that after this Exteriorization, the individual usually returns to the same planet and acquires another body of the same general type and race as before.
In Para-Technology, there are many discussions about the between-lives areas and other phenomena that may occur at one time or another “in heaven” or “in hell,” but it has been firmly established that the Thetan is immortal and that he cannot truly experience death but merely “mock it up” through forgetting.
There is ample evidence that the Thetan lives again and that he is quite concerned with leaving something on the Time Track—something for the future—to have something to return to.
Thus arises the concern with sex. There must be as many bodies as possible for future lives. Obviously, what we create in our society during life affects us during our next existence. This is not a “belief” or theory. In Technology, we do not force conclusions upon anyone. Any individual may experience these things for himself, and no one is expected to accept them as true without doing so. The proof that our future is our next life completely changes the basic concept of the soul’s participation. There is no contradiction here with the dogmas of faith, since religions generally do not state precisely that man goes immediately to heaven or hell. The individual definitely experiences the effects of the civilization he helped create in his next life. In other words, the individual returns. He bears responsibility for everything happening today, for he will live it again tomorrow.
The importance of sex was exaggerated in old psychotherapy; in our time, it has been somewhat debunked. Sex is only one of the numerous creative impulses. However, the preoccupation with sex arises when an individual begins to believe there will be no body for him in the next life.
The common denominator of all aberrations is the cessation of creation. Since sex is only one form of creation—a rather low one—it is clear that misfortune can arise from various cessations of creation. Death itself is a specific loss of creation. One ceases to create the individuality of John Jones, the environment and possessions of John Jones. He stops doing this because he is certain he cannot do so without help from the body, having become dependent on the mind and the body—the first of which must think for him and the second act for him. The individual becomes so gloomy about the idea of creation that he may actually reach a state of inability to create.

Control 

It can be seen that these three parts of Man are closely related to control. The anatomy of control is Start, Change, and Stop.
Loss of control occurs together with loss of pan-determinism (all-determinism, or full determinism). When someone becomes overly fanatical about something, separating himself from the rest of the environment, he no longer controls that environment to the degree that he could, and thus becomes unable to start, change, and stop the environment. The definition of control as consisting of starting, changing, and stopping is a scientific definition in Technology. These three manifestations can be related to the visible cycle of action: creation, survival, destruction. Every person exists somewhere along this curve. An individual concentrated mainly on survival usually has a tendency toward changing things. An individual who is close to destruction is mainly occupied with stopping things. An individual who lives by heart and mind is concentrated on creating things.
There are three bad things that can happen to any person—an inability to start, an inability to change, and an inability to stop. Insanity is largely an inability to stop. Neurosis is a habit which, worsening over time, goes completely out of control. A man who has been stopped too often in life becomes an enemy of stops and dislikes them so strongly that he ceases altogether to want to stop anything. All kinds of neuroses and psychoses stem entirely from the inability to start, change, or stop.
When we look at the parts of Man, we find that all things relating to actions, activities, or behavior are initiated by the Thetan. Having started something, he may dull his alertness, lose direction, and act so that his attention becomes fixed in some particular direction, and he begins to suffer from these three inabilities. However, this anatomy of control applies to every part of Man.
The individual first comes to an inability to start, change, and stop without external help. Then the mind itself can become subject to these same inabilities and can no longer start, change, or stop at will. Then the body itself begins to suffer from these inabilities and cannot start, change, or end. Curiously, however, the environment can act upon the individual in such a way that the Thetan’s body may become unable—not by the Thetan’s own choice.
Likewise, the reactive mind can become unable not by the choice of the body or Thetan; but the Thetan himself, aside from merely observing the consequences of various causes (effects) and choosing to be in them, can only become unable by becoming too fanatical, too little pan-determined, thus bringing himself into difficulties.
At the same time, all these difficulties are merely problems of judgment. As the Thetan decides, so it is. Ultimately, the Thetan has no problems of his own. All such problems are “other people’s problems” and must exist in the mind, in the body, in other people, or in the surrounding environment in order for him to have problems at all. Thus, his difficulties consist mainly in how to remain in the game and keep it going.
If the Thetan suffers from anything, it is Re-creation. A manifestation of Re-creation may be the destruction of his own creations or the destructive presence of other creations. Thus, a Thetan may come to believe that he is trapped if someone has created something superior. In the writings of the past concerning the mind and the philosophy of life, there were great quantities of speculation and very little actual evidence. Consequently, these philosophies were creations, and one philosopher spent his efforts re-creating another.
In Technology we have a single difference. We are dealing with discoveries. The only things truly created in Technology are those books and works in which Technology is presented. Esoteric phenomena are discovered and are common to all people and all forms of life. Clearing Technology makes no attempt to re-create every Thetan in its path. One could, of course, regard Technology as a creation and assume that it strives for superiority. But the correct view is otherwise, for its purpose is to assist Life as a Whole, giving it the ability to create a better civilization and a better game. There are no principles in Technology that cannot be fully demonstrated by scientific methods.