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THE FOUR BASIC POSTULATES
If one were to inquire into the nature of the quality or ability that is closest to life itself one would eventually arrive at the subject of knowing. Life can know. All else is the subject of methods or systems of knowing.
The basic law, or agreement of this universe is that one will only know that which is brought into existence to be known. Thus, this universe sets a limitation upon knowing as only being possible for the class of things which are brought into existence to be known.
This law is peculiar to this universe. A being can only operate, i.e., * play games within this universe while in agreement with this law. Once he starts to know outside of this law he is operating outside the universe.
*i.e: Id est. Translates into, “that is to say..”
The action of bringing something into existence so that it can be known is called creation. Thus, in this universe knowing is limited to those things which have been created in the universe.
It should never be considered that knowing is by nature limited to those things which are created to be known. Life can know; it can know anything, whether it has been brought into existence to be known or not. In order to operate in this universe life considers, or agrees, that it will not-know until something is brought into existence to be known.
This limitation upon knowing is the basic law, and the only basic law, that governs this universe. Other universes can be constructed upon other basic laws, but they would all be some type of limitation of knowing, for while knowing is unlimited any type of universe or game is impossible. Bear the basic law of this universe in mind as you do the Practical Exercises, for all the games you have ever become trapped in in this universe have been based upon the basic law of the universe.
Purpose, Intention, Goal and Postulate can be regarded as synonyms. A game is a contest in conviction*.
*Conviction: a firmly held belief or opinion
“A game is a contest of conviction” could also be written as, “A game is a contest of trying to convince the other of your postulate without being convinced of theirs”, a postulate being a causative consideration (You want to cause something). I convince you of my postulate that I am the better chess player by beating you in a game of chess. A woman convinces others she is the most attractive by winning a beauty contest, and so on. -Editor
Conviction, then, is an enforcement of knowingness.
(Could also be written, “Conviction is enforced knowing”. This writing style often uses the suffix -ness to turn verbs into nouns -editor)
Enforcement of knowingness is called importance.
Purposes are made more intense in order to make them more convincing. Thus, importance is the intensity of purpose; the degree of ‘mustness’ in that purpose. As the intensity, or importance, of a purpose approaches zero, so the purpose itself approaches zero. Importance bears the same relation to purpose as cattishness does to a cat: when all the cattishness has been removed the cat has gone too. Thus, to resolve a purpose in the mind it is only necessary to address the importance of this purpose; once this has been resolved the purpose itself will approach zero and finally vanish. This is the basis of all effective psychotherapy.
Significance is the consideration of both the nature of a purpose and its importance. So, significance too approaches zero as the intensity, or importance, of that purpose approaches zero. There can be no significance in the absence of importance. Thus, importance is the basis of all significance.
So, any purpose, to stay in existence, requires an importance ‘rating’. But importance is an enforced knowingness, and once the importance has gone the purpose too has vanished. Thus, all purposes are systems or methods of knowing, not-knowing, making known, or making not-known.
Purposes are held in suspension in the mind by opposing purposes. Thus, a purpose can only be resolved in relation to its opposition; it can never be resolved in isolation. A pair of purposes in opposition is called a problem. Problems are the basic building blocks of games.
Life is a spiritual quality. It has four basic abilities:
1. It can bring things into existence.
2. It can take things out of existence.
3. It can know.
4. It can not-know.
These actions are accomplished by postulates. A postulate is a causative consideration.*
*In plainer terms, a 'causative consideration' would be the idea to cause something.
That which is brought into existence, taken out of existence, known or not-known is called an effect.
1. The purpose of bringing an effect into existence is to make it known.
2. The purpose of taking an effect out of existence is to make it not-known.
3. The purpose of knowing is to know.
4. The purpose of not-knowing is to not know.
Thus, 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 are complementary* postulates. They enhance affinity**.
Thus, 1 & 4 and 2 & 3 are conflicting postulates. They lower affinity.
*Please note the word is “complementary” and not "complimentary", like some faulty transcriptions of Dennis' works have it. Complementary postulates are ones that complete each other. "To complement" means to complete, not pay someone a compliment or give someone something for free as in "complimentary".
**affinity: the degree of love or liking.
Conflicting postulates are called a game. The purpose of a game is to have fun. All conflicting postulates are essentially a game, though it may be called other things. Due to contagion with opposing postulates all games tend to reduce the ability of the being to postulate. The power of a being is his ability to make his postulates effective.
A game is won when the loser becomes convinced of the opponent’s postulates. Thus, all games are essentially contests in conviction, and all failure is basically postulate failure. (Those things which have been variously called engrams*, traumas, etc. will be found upon examination only to consist of postulate failure.) Postulate failure is known as an overwhelm. Overwhelming the postulate of an opponent in a game is known as an overt act. Having one’s own postulates overwhelmed is called a motivator.
*The term “engram” as a moment of physical pain/impact stored in the ‘reactive mind’, a stimulus-response mind that acts in hidden control of the individual, first appeared in the works of L Ron Hubbard and is covered extensively in Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health
The difference between win/lose and overt/motivator is a very fine one and is determined solely by the considered value of the game. If the game is relatively trivial, then win/lose is applied; if the game is serious (important) then overt/motivator is applied.
In that the winning of a game brings about the end of the game - and thus the loss of the game itself* - winning and losing are junior considerations to the actual playing of the game. Thus, the playing of the game is senior to the consideration of win/lose. It is a rule of all games, that intentionally lowering one’s ability in order to be more evenly matched with the opponent leads inevitably to the state of an enforced loss of the game.
Thus, the paradox** of all games:
a. All games are played for fun
b. To always win is no fun.
c. To invite a loss is to eventually have a loss enforced upon one.
*One 'loses the game' in the sense they no longer have that game to play.
**Paradox: a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.
Thus, eventual failure is the end-result of all games.
This is the dwindling spiral of ability of the being in the universe (After the loss of a game considered serious, the loser’s only recourse is to blame the victor for overwhelming him. Thus, blame is the assignment of responsibility for the outcome of a game, with an implied wrongness. If the victor accepts this blame - it too is a postulate overwhelm - he feels guilt. Thus, blame and guilt are seen as two sides of the same coin: where one is present you will always find the other. They are a pair and are quite inseparable).
Games are played in space and need time for their completion. In the absence of games, space and time cease to exist. Thus, conflicting postulates perpetuate space and time, while complementary postulates vanish it. A game to be worth playing must contain elements considered valuable. Value is monitored by the consideration of beauty and is increased by scarcity. But as both the effect and the consideration of value or beauty are generated by life, then life has a senior value to all things (Civilizations invariably decline when this truth is lost).
Complementary postulates enhance life; conflicting postulates detract from it. Thus, games, although considered fun, have the liability of lessening the “amount” of life the being possesses.
Games, by their very nature, can become compulsive, and result in a lessening of life - to such a degree that the true nature of life, postulates and games themselves become unknown to the being. This state of affairs is only resolved in the final instance by the application of complementary postulates. Thus, complementary postulates when applied have the ability to dissolve all games.
The four basic actions of life each have a twin postulate structure:
1. The postulate bringing the effect into existence, and the postulate that it shall be known.
2. The postulate taking the effect out of existence, and the postulate that it shall be made not-known.
3. The postulate to know the effect and the postulate that it shall be made known.
4. The postulate to not-know the effect and the postulate that it shall be made not-known.
Thus, in each of the basic actions, each postulate complements and enhances its twin. Thus, the postulate structure between beings is:
SELF OTHERS
1. Make known. Know.
2. Make not-known Not-know.
3. Know. Make known.
4. Not-know. Make not-known.
The “self” postulate is at one’s own end of the comm line* and is called the self-determined postulate (SD); the “other’s” postulate is the one you put at the other end of the comm line and is called the pan-determined postulate (PD)**. Thus, when two beings, at different ends of a comm line, adopt (1) and (3) or (2) and (4) respectively, both their self-determined and pan-determined postulates match perfectly, and understanding occurs. However, when they adopt (1) & (4) or (2) & (3) respectively, there is conflict between their SD & PD postulates and understanding is correspondingly reduced.
*Communication line/Comm line: The route along which a communication travels from one person to another. When two people are communicating with each other it is said a communication line (comm line) exists between them.
**Please note that the pan-determined postulate is the postulate you put on the other, not the postulate the other makes. In other words, if you make the self-determined postulate ‘to know’, you are making a pan-determined postulate that the other is to be known. It’s your postulate, not necessarily his. If he agrees with your pan-determined postulate then postulates are complementary. If he does not agree (and makes the postulate ‘to not be known’) then there is a conflict between your PD and his SD postulate.
The Four Basic Complementary Postulates.
Be known.
This is the creative postulate; the postulate that brings the effect into the existence. His PD postulate that goes with it at the other end of the comm line is ‘know’. This twin postulate structure is still present even if the effect is only being created for the benefit of the creator; in this case he merely responds to his own PD postulate and knows his own creation.
Time is the postulate “Continue to be known”, and is the postulate that introduces persistence into the creation. In games play there are many methods of ensuring persistence, so that others are not easily able to vanish a creation. The most basic method is the lie, which calls the creation something which it is not. Thus, the perceiver only views the lie, and is unable to vanish the original postulate, which remains hidden. Therefore, this late in the game very few things are what they appear to be, and illusions are rampant.
There are no screens* associated with this postulate, but there are plenty of them to be encountered from the opposition postulate, “Mustn’t know” (See later in this section.)
*Refers to non-perception screens.
Be Not-known.
This is the vanishing postulate; the postulate that takes the effect out of existence. His matching PD postulate at the other end of the comm line is “Not-know”. However, due to the various persistency mechanisms it’s not easy these days to make a piece of the universe vanish for everyone. Consequently, the vanishing postulate has long since become the hiding postulate. The being, no longer able to make the effect vanish, has to be content with hiding it. There are many ways of doing this, the most common being to veil it with screens. The most impervious screens are black ones, and you will always find a lot of gooey blackness associated with this postulate.
In point of fact, the lie mechanism which is used by ‘Be known’ in games play to ensure the persistency of a creation by calling it something different from what it is, is really an attempt to mask the truth and is a part of ‘Be Not-known’, but I included it in the earlier section for convenience. ‘Be Not-known’ also uses the lie mechanism by further masking the truth so that the knower will not recognize the effect even when he finds it. It’s all very devious - and little wonder that people take up religion, and pray that the Almighty can maybe sort out the mess for them.
Know
This is the postulate that permits the being to know the effect. His matching PD postulate at the other end of the comm line is ‘Be Known’ - so the effect is there for him to know.
There are no screens or blackness associated with knowing, but as this postulate in games play is opposed by ‘Be Not-known’, you can expect to be feeling your way through a fair bit of murk from time to time in your pursuit of this postulate. Just work your way through it and understand what is going on, that’s all.
Not-Know
This is the ‘no-perceive’ postulate; it is the postulate the being uses to permit him to be unaware of an effect. His matching PD postulate at the other end of the comm line is ‘Be not-known’.
It’s necessary to clearly differentiate this postulate from ‘Be Not-known’. ‘Be Not-known’ is a vanishing or hiding postulate; ‘Not-know’ is merely a desire not to perceive the effect. An example of the use of the postulate is a spiritual being looking through a wall; he chooses to ‘Not-know’ the wall so he can perceive what is on the other side.
However, due to the persistency postulates of the universe the ‘Not-know’ postulate degenerates into an attempt to vanish the unwanted effect by force, then, failing that, to hide the effect from oneself behind a screen - usually of blackness. These screens are of an entirely different texture to the screens associated with the ‘Be Not-known’ postulate, being much harder and almost brittle. They are “impact resistant” screens designed for use against the most enthusiastic ‘Must Be Knowners’ he encounters in games play. When you strike these screens, you will feel as though you are dealing with black Basalt*. Sometimes, however, the screens of ‘Mustn’t know’ are quite transparent, and have the consistency of super-hardened quartz. All the screens associated with “Mustn’t know’ are hard, and clearly designed to resist any conceivable effect. People heavily dramatizing** this postulate tend to develop a brittle hardness to their personality too. These people almost literally “crack” under intolerable stress.
*Basalt: a dark, fine-grained volcanic rock
**In simpler terms, "acting out".
The PD postulates.
These are the hidden postulates in life; not because any attempt is being made to hide them, but merely because man the materialist cannot fit them into his theories about life, and so tends to discount their existence. Everyone knows about SD postulates, but few suspect the existence of their PD twins at the other end of the comm line. Thus, being unknown or generally ignored, they tend to be highly effective.
For example, how many people can resist a stray cat who wanders in and looks at you with his big, pleading eyes? You don’t know it but that sudden urge to get him a saucer of milk and a nice warm home is more his PD postulate than your SD one! Animals, being entirely natural, and not being educated to the contrary, use their PD postulates to the full, thus making willing slaves out of us “Oh so much more intelligent and rational” humans. Babies too are masters of the PD postulate; they have yet to be educated out of their belief in the efficacy of such things.
A large part of your work will be exercises in developing your PD postulates, and becoming aware of the PD postulates of others, for in our civilization it has become an almost totally neglected aspect of life. What is called a “magnetic” personality is entirely the conscious or unconscious use of PD postulates. The subject of PD postulates is the whole subject of ‘action at a distance’. Learn to use them, for they are an integral part of the abilities at your disposal.
Man, the materialist is endlessly mystified and intrigued by psionic* abilities, where beings know or create effects across a distance, or through time. These are usually, in this day and age, manifestations of PD postulates that are as much a surprise to their originators as they are to those learned scientists who examine them. Most of the manifestations of are pretty elementary, and are not to be compared with what can happen when the being gets the mechanism under his conscious control.
*Psionic: relating to or denoting the practical use of psychic (having to do with the psyche) powers or paranormal phenomena.
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