The Basic Individual

Here's a quote I really like from the book Dianetics: The Original Thesis.

The basic individual is not a buried, unknown or different person, but an intensity of all that is best and most able in the person.

This is not just an opinion, but is what was actually discovered during the early days of Dianetics research.  The basic individual is you once the traumas, large and small, have been released from your life.  That's something you can achieve through Dianetics and Scientology.

Acting Contrary to Survival - Why?

I'm currently studying the fundamentals of Scientology. What we call the "Basics". What I'm doing is studying everything chronologically. I started with the book "Dianetics: The Original Thesis", which was the first description of Dianetics, passed around from hand-to-hand first by friends of L. Ron Hubbard and then by many more interested people.

I'm well past Original Thesis now, but today I was looking back at some of my notes and I found some things that I thought I'd share.

This first quote explains what is behind actions that you or others have taken that didn't make any sense.  For example, with all we know now about the damage drugs such as cocaine and heroine can do, why is it that people still take them?  Why is it that a suicide bomber does what he does?  Why is it that Joe yelled at Mary when in fact he loves her?  Why on earth did a seemingly successful marriage suddenly break up?

The explanation is in this first quote.  And it leads to solutions for all of the examples I gave and for any other behavior that just doesn't seem to make any sense.  Those solutions can all be found in Scientology.

Here is the quote from the book Dianetics: The Original Thesis:

When the individual is acting contrary to the survival of himself, his group, progeny, race, mankind or life, he can be considered to be unintelligent, uninformed or aberrated.

Unintelligent and uninformed are relatively easy to handle, but "aberrated" can be much more difficult.  The good new is that it is what Scientology and Dianetics handle successfully every day.

Scientology: The Basics versus The Beginning Books

Mr.Pete brought up an excellent point: "I think a little more distinction between the Basic and Beginning books would be helpful rather than just links to them."

"The Basics" are a big deal right now in Scientology. They are mentioned a lot by Scientologists and there have been questions about them in comments on this blog. So I think I'd better clearly explain what they are.

We actually have three things that get talked about:
- The Basics
- The Basic Books
- The Beginning Books

First the word "basic". Here it is being used to mean "most important or essential". It is not being used to mean "elementary: serving as a starting point or minimum". I think some confusion has been caused because the word "basic" has both of these definitions.

The "Basics" are a collection of books and recorded lectures regarded as containing the fundamentals of Scientology and Dianetics. That may not seem significant on first reading, but think about it this way: the Basics are what Scientology is built upon and if you have not studied them then you really don't have a full and complete grasp of what Scientology is.

The "Basic Books" are the books within the the Basics. That is, the books excluding the recorded lectures.

The "Beginning Books" are the books to read to get an introduction to Scientology. They are a sub-set of the Basics and fit the "elementary: serving as a starting point or minimum" definition of the word basic. But to call them "basic" would be really confusing, so we call them the "Beginning Books".

I hope that helps.