Matched Terminals and Art-Forms

by Frank Gordon USA

In Another Look at Basics-#16 in IVy 35, "Connectedness and Havingness," under the Reality Scale,(1) Hubbard related Connectedness(2) to Havingness,(3) and narrowed its meaning to: "the basic process on association of theta with mest." He then applied this concept of Connectedness directly by: "Get the idea of making (indicated object) connect with you" in order to make the pc more self-determined about connections, and improve his abiliy to run Havingness.

In a second article, #17 in IVy 36, "Connectedness and Matched Terminals," it was noted that Connectedness has special properties when it occurs between two Matched Terminals.(4)

This third article in the series examines how Connectedness between similar Matched Terminals can be applied to other situations and also to art-forms (aesthetics).

Matching terminals and engram restimulation

When an individual is unaware of a force-picture in his mind (a terminal), something similar may happen accidentally in the environment, providing a similar terminal. Then a Matched Terminal discharge occurs with consequent restimulation.

It may be possible to design an art-form which will deliberately match and restimulate engrams, and so provide for a resimulation-destimulation relief cycle (a catharsis).

Matching terminals and problems of comparable magnitude

Occasionally, it has been found that Inventing (Similar) Problems of Comparable Magnitude (a kind of matching terminals) will result in the vanishment, not merely of concern about a problem, but of the actual problem.(5) I have seen this happen; while following Bob Ross's suggestion that each new invented problem be compared, not with the original problem, but with the last one invented.

Matching terminals with a suppressive person

There may be some truth in the frequent allegation that "He's pulling it in." This possibility was discussed in "The Story of Search and Discovery" by John McMaster, IVy 25, p.37.

McMaster and others searched for what was causing no-gain and slow-gain cases (i.e., a suppressor). They found two factors: 1. the person had something in his own space which could be restimulated by another's behaviour, and when it was found and blown, he was no longer restimulated; and 2. he was unknowingly doing something that was compelling the other person to act suppressively towards him.

The matching of one of the above factors with the other terminal (called the suppressive person) gave a connection and flow that permitted suppression. McMaster felt that erasing the two factors above was the answer. But Hubbard disagreed, and assigned cause to the suppressive person, which reduced personal responsibility.

Pulling it in, or projecting

Often the statements, "You pulled that problem situation in," or "You're projecting that problem onto me," are used to assign blame.(6) But both actions are makeshift attempts to extrovert and run an objective process on subjective turbulence. This can be more effective than introversion(7)

One principle is to help the mind do what it is already doing. This can be done by deliberately projecting common problems and concerns as stories and plays, and brings us to the subject of aesthetics, not merely as beauty, but as to how we can best project and discharge these common difficulties.

Art-forms and catharsis

The fine arts, which include plays, literature, sculpture and painting; can provide external matching terminals reflecting various personal painful experiences. These reflections can evoke a healing flow or catharsis.

A catharsis is a purification or purgation which will discharge painful emotion. Aristotle, in his book on Poetics, gave catharsis, "the purging of pity and fear," as the purpose of Greek tragedy.

One can define art as the quality of communication (Hubbard), as the re-creation of a reality (from a philosophy book), or as given below:

"...Experience is, in a way, limitless; nothing in life has either a beginning or an end. An artist's first and perhaps major task is so to select his material that he not only creates a coherent and self-contained whole, but a whole which makes a comment upon, casts a reflective light back on that unselected mass of experience which is recognizably life and is incapable of commenting upon itself.

"Art exists, then, through the reduction, by formative selection of the abundantly chaotic materials of life to structures that will stand as meaningful penetrations into that chaos." - Mark Schorer, in his introduction to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Houghton Mifflin, 1956.

Oddly enough, the above also applies to the construction of a science and is an example of Logic 10(8) applied to fiction.

Many stories and plays, if well done, can provide a delicate and pleasureable restimulation and working through of one's difficulties.(9) The writer can give the reader an emotional touch assist which mildly matches and restimulates his pain and upset and helps discharge it.

Jack Woodford, a successful author of the 1930's, felt that what his readers wanted most was a vicarious masochism, as they avidly projected their sufferings and frustrations upon the hero, before finally allowing him to triumph.(10)

Summary

Conceivably a whole system of clearing could be developed by exposing an individual to art-forms tailored to and reflecting his inner turbulence. His natural tendency to project problems upon others shows the need for such an art-form.

And it may be that a higher concept; combining the concepts of Reality, Havingness, Connectedness and Matched Terminals, will provide additional aligning power as per Logic 10, and help find a simpler basic common to both auditing and aesthetics.

I do not as yet have a concept adequately expressing this, but it might be called "reflective or cathartic connectedness." It could also be expressed as an added: "Logic 25. The most valuable connectedness is that which evokes or permits a free flow."

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1 Given here once more for your convenience. The Reality Scale: Postulate, Consideration (continuing postulate),  Agreement (shared consideration), Terminals as solids or masses (proof of the consideration), Lines, then "No terminal, no line." He related this Scale to the CCHs. Tech Vol III, p.139.

2 Connectedness. Most generally, the quality or state of being connected. For how Hubbard applied this, see Tech Vol III, p.163, and "Connectedness and Havingness," IVy 35, p.--.

3 "the Havingness Scale .. consists of doingnesses with regard to mass. And they begin at the top with Create, go down at once into Contribute to, into Confront, into Have, into Waste, and on down into Substitute. That all belongs at Mass; these are all the things you do with mass." From "On Havingness" IVy 34, p.--.

4 Hubbard describes them by: "the way one does Matched Terminals is to have the preclear facing the preclear or his father facing his father (using mock-ups); in other words, two of each of anything, one facing the other. These two things will discharge one into the other. Thus running off the difficulty." Tech Dict 72, p.243. Also Scn 8-8008, p.127 and see Index, Tech Vol I.

5 Hubbard observed that: "...when the problem can be totally confronted it no longer exists. This is strange and miraculous...It is hard to believe that an individual who has a drunken husband could cure that individual of drink simply by processing out the the problem of having a drunken husband (by using Problems of Comparable Magnitude), and yet this has occurred." Tech Vol III, p.115.

6 Projection: the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; esp: the externalization of blame, guilt or responsibility as a defense against anxiety. Web Coll 1985. The opposite is introjection: the adoption of externals (persons or objects) into the self, so as to have a sense of oneness with them and to feel personally affected by what happens to them. Used positively, these two mechanisms could enhance affinity by, "I see myself in you, and you in myself."

7 In Tech Vol II, p.448, Hubbard notes that: "One addresses...the subjective self, the mind, as little as possible...An address to the various energy patterns of the mind is less beneficial than exercises which directly approach other people and the physical universe." Apparently, people instinctively recognize the advantages of gossip and focusing on other people's difficulties as a safe way to covertly handle their own.

8 Logic 10: The value of a datum (or concept) is established by the amount of alignment (relationship - or connectedness) it imparts to other data. Logic 10 has also been discussed in IVy 19, 21, and 22.

9 See "Writing and Auditing," IVy 11, p.6.

10 Woodford also wrote sex-novels and romances and tells an amusing story about a publisher who complained that the first page of his new novel had no sex. Woodford replied, "Yes there is! Right there at the bottom of the first page!" But his publisher was not satisfied until the story began with: "The naked woman stood at the window, as she watched the young man come up the walk."
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