The Blame/Guilt mechanism
Cause is the action of bringing an effect into existence, taking an effect out of existence, knowing, or not-knowing. That which is brought into existence, taken out of existence, known, or not-known is called an effect.
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Thus life, in all its manifestations, is causative.
Causation is the common denominator of all life impulses. Causation is achieved by postulates. A postulate is a causative consideration. A consideration is defined as a thought, or idea.
Life can believe itself to be an effect, but that belief is itself a causative consideration.
Responsibility is the willingness to assume causation. A being can assume causation for anything. The only liability to assuming causation is to run the being out of games. The only liability to not assuming causation is to give the being a surfeit* of games. Thus, as games become progressively more compulsive, the willingness to assume causation (responsibility) is seen to lessen. Unwillingness to assume causation is thus a measure of the compulsiveness to play games in a being.
*surfeit: an excessive amount.
Complementary postulates enhance affinity; conflicting postulates lessen affinity.
Thus, affinity is the willingness to create complementary postulates. Love is the expression of affinity.
Reality is the degree to which complementary postulates are created. Thus, as games become progressively more compulsive things become progressively less real to the being. Things are only as real as one is creating complementary postulates regarding them.
Communication is the action of creating complementary postulates.
When two or more beings adopt complementary postulates regarding a creation they share that creation, which is now a co-creation. They are said to be in agreement regarding that creation. Thus, agreement is a shared creation.
Beings, by means of their willingness to create complementary postulates (affinity) and by actually creating complementary postulates (communication), achieve co-creation (reality). Thus, understanding is achieved between beings.
Games, because they contain conflicting postulates, lessen understanding between beings.
A right action is a lovable action; it is an action that one is willing to create complementary postulates with. A wrong action is an unlovable action; it is an action that one is unwilling to create complementary postulates with.
Thus, the concept of right and wrong is a concept brought about by games. There is no absolute right and no absolute wrong. What is considered right or wrong is relative to the being and the games he is playing. Thus, what is considered a right action in one society can be a capital offense in another.
However, although the subject of what is right and what is wrong is within games there is a senior ethic. This is the subject of the right way to play games. This ethic, being about games, is not relative to the being and the games he is playing and is thus not within games. This ethic is the Code of the Ethical Being*. While games are played within this ethic, they retain all their element of fun, but cease to be the traps they become when played outside of this ethic. The only safe way to play games is to play them within this ethic. But the being can only play within this ethic while games are non-compulsive. Therefore, he needs to address the subject of games with a view to taking the compulsion out of them. Thereafter he’ll be able to play within the ethic, and enjoy games forever with no liability to his beingness.
*This code being the one covered earlier in this work— NEVER FORCE A PERSON TO KNOW A THING AGAINST THEIR CHOICE, and so on.
Continuing on the subject of within-game ethics. A games rule is an agreement between beings denoting permissible (right) play. Play outside of the rules is considered improper and therefore wrongful play. Laws are games rules denoting permissible play in a society. Thus, to accuse another of a wrong action is to accuse him of acting outside the rules of the game; it is to accuse him of unethical behavior.
A being, having lost a game played fairly within the rules, can either accept the loss or attempt to imply that the victor had committed wrongful play. These are the only two choices open to him. If he can convince his opponent that he has committed wrongful play he (the victor) will believe that he has behaved unethically and did not win the game fairly. The action of assigning causation for wrongful (unethical) play to an opponent is called blame. If the opponent accepts the blame, he feels guilt.
Not wishing to behave in an unethical manner the guilty being resolves not to play in such a manner again. This, of course, is the precise effect intended by the blamer, who, now having succeeded in limiting his opponent’s willingness to act, is more easily able to overwhelm him.
Thus, blame is seen as an attempt to lower another’s willingness to act by invoking the suggestion of wrongful play, and thereby make him easier to overwhelm.
The Blame/Guilt mechanism is pure games play. The purpose of blame is only to permit the blamer to win games. Unable to win games any other way, and having the need to win games, he resorts to the blame mechanism in order to do so.
In that any life game has a near infinite number of possibilities within it, and that it is clearly impossible to draw up game rules for all of them, the Blame/Guilt mechanism is always available to a games player. There is always some action he can point his finger at, declare it wrongful, and so attempt to make his opponent feel guilty - and thus use less than his full abilities in the playing of the game.
As a wrong act is essentially an unlovable act, the use of the blame mechanism is pure emotional blackmail: I’ll withdraw my love (affinity) from you if you persist in acting in such a manner that prevents me from winning the game.
However, blame has the liability of having to convince the other being that a wrongness has occurred. So, the blamer must keep the wrongness in existence in order to convince the other that it has occurred. Thus, we find the blamer having to keep whole sections of his mind in existence in order to convince others that he has been wronged. It is a terrible price to pay for his compulsion to win games, but it clearly shows the limits to which beings will go in order to do so.
The Blame/Guilt mechanism breeds compulsive games play. Compulsive games play breeds the Blame/Guilt mechanism. They are inseparable, and where you find one you will always find the other. By means of the Blame/Guilt mechanism life finally degenerates into a frantic attempt to make others guilty while equally frantically resisting their attempts to do the same thing to you. At this level life is seen by the player as one vast sea of wrongness containing one tiny island of rightness - himself. And he knows above all things that if he stops assigning wrongness (blame) for even one instant his island will sink, and he will drown and be lost forever in that sea of wrongness. It’s not that the compulsive blamer is always right, it’s just that he has a vast need to be right. He is always right. Even when he is wrong, he is right. And he’ll still be protesting his rightness when the coffin lid is nailed down on him. For he knows how to win games: always make sure that self is right and others are wrong. It becomes his epitaph.
This is how the subject of right and wrong got into games play. And games have never been the same since. It has no other significance. Once it is understood for what it is, it will be found to resolve with no other address by use of the exercises in the Practical Section. As the compulsion to play games lessens, the need to invoke the Blame/Guilt mechanism also lessens, and finally vanishes. It always was a crummy mechanism, and games are much more fun and healthier without it.
Shame is guilt exposed. Ridicule is the exposure of guilt. Shame/Ridicule form a pair like Blame/Guilt, from which they were spawned.
The Service Effect.
Every being tends to utilize whatever he has at his disposal in the playing of games. This applies to any effect. For example, he may find himself stuck with (Must know) a chronic pain in the back; he may use this pain in the back to dominate his family (Must be known). He may use it as an excuse for a trip around the world so he can see the sights (Must know). He may use it as the reason he needs solitude (Mustn’t be known). He may use it to achieve all three postulates; or he may not use it at all. It depends upon the being and the games he is playing.
Always be prepared then to consider an effect as a service effect: something which the being presses into service in life to aid him in the playing of games. What starts out as a ‘Must be known’ is used by another who gets stuck with it (Must know) as something to hide in, and resist the world with. And so on; the permutations* on the theme are nearly infinite.
*Permutation: a way, especially one of several possible variations, in which a set or number of things can be ordered or arranged: "his thoughts raced ahead to fifty different permutations of what he must do"
Do you have to do anything about this phenomenon on the route out? No. One only has to become aware of it; that is sufficient. In truth, the being is hampered by this effect; he is always more capable without the dependency upon it. But only when he spots this will he relinquish the effect. So, you won’t find any exercises in the practical section designed to handle this phenomenon, for it is an integral part of all games play. We all do it. We always have done it. And we’ll continue to do it as long as we consider the effect to be more valuable than its absence. Indeed, one could consider the whole mind to be a vast service effect, and in many ways, it is exactly that.
The term "Service Effect" has nearly the same meaning as what's known in Scientology as a "Service Facsimile" (Facsimiles are pictures in the mind). Service Facsimiles are widely covered in that subject, and an early mention of this phenomenon can be found in Handbook for Preclears by L Ron Hubbard. He also covers the subjects of blame, shame and regret in that book.
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