This page acts not only as a glossary for TROM 2023 but also for this site, our YouTube videos and the subject of TROM, including the 1990s lectures.
It is, and always will be a work-in-progress as we strive towards the unattainable yet approachable goal of perfection in our work. As we continue our current project of study help for the advanced lectures and receive emails asking us what this or that means, we will update this page.
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GLOSSARY
ABERRATED BEHAVIOR/ABERRATION: Aberration is a departure from rational thought. Content found in the reactive mind is said to aberrate the individual. See REACTIVE MIND
AFFINITY: The degree of love or liking is said to be one’s affinity for something.
AFOUL OF: SEE FALL AFOUL OF
ARC: Affinity, Reality and Communication. In Scientology, these form a triangle that composes understanding. Raise one corner of the triangle, and you raise the other two. You can also lower one and you will lower the other two. "Reality" in this context has to do with agreement. In the subject of TROM these three things are results of making complementary postulates.
ARC BREAK: A lowering of ARC between two beings. In plainer terms, an upset.
AUDITING/AUDITOR/AUDITING COMMAND: In Scientology, the therapy parishioners receive from the Church provided by AUDITORS is called AUDITING. This consists of a set of AUDITING COMMANDS the auditor gives to the person receiving therapy. In TROM there are similar processes most commonly referred to as “exercises” and are self-administered, though the two terms, “auditing” and “exercises” are often used interchangeably in the subject of TROM.
AUDITOR’S CODE: is a specific set of rules an Auditor must follow.
BANK: see REACTIVE MIND
BASIC-BASIC—the very earliest incident.
BLACK SCREENS: SEE NON-PERCEPTION SCREENS
BLACK FIELD, just some part of a mental image picture where the preclear is looking at blackness. A BLACK
FIELD CASE is a case that could not run engrams because he could not see them.
BLANKETING in "The History of Man" refers to the book History of Man by L Ron Hubbard. There is a passage about how disembodied thetans would wrap themselves around bodies for a sexual thrill.
BLOW THE SESSION: In the process of auditing, the preclear leaving session without the auditor's permission.
BODY THETANS: SEE ENTRY FOR NOTS
BOOK ONE: “Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health” by L Ron Hubbard is commonly referred to as “Book One”.
BOUNCER: a command in the reactive mind that compels the preclear to go somewhere else on his time track.
BUTTON: a hidden sensitivity that can be manipulated to produce a desired response. When one “pushes your buttons” they are trying to evoke a response from you. Used loosely in the following context as something that is important to the person or that they are concerned/sensitive about:
“The ‘button’ is importance; the unimportance comes out in the wash.” (From The Resolution of Mind A Games Manual)
CASE: The sum of a person’s aberrations, problems, failed purposes, etc. Scientology auditing and TROM exercises are directed toward handing a person’s “case”.
CASE LEVEL: A determination of how much of a person’s CASE has been handled by Scientology auditing or TROM exercises.
CCH or CONTROL, COMMUNICATION AND HAVINGNESS: see OBJECTIVE PROCESSES
CHARGE: upset or conflict in the mind.
CIRCUITS: When Dennis talks about “Mis-owned circuitry in the bank”: he is referring to how in Dianetics there is reference to “Demon Circuits” which are portions of the Analytical Mind (The aware, rational thinking mind) ‘captured’ by the Reactive Mind (the irrational stimulus-response mind one is unaware of) that act like separate entities. It could act like a voice in your head speaking to you, for example. “The Bank” is short for “Reactive Bank” which is another word for the Reactive Mind.
CLEAR: A being who no longer has a REACTIVE MIND. It was the original intent of L Ron Hubbard that everyone on Earth become a “clear” and thus attain a CLEARED PLANET. See REACTIVE MIND.
CLEARING: Bringing the person up to a point where he realizes that he can handle his mind and handle his life.
COEXTENSIVE (WITH): that is a technical term, it's not a difficult technical term, it's
a term used in logic. It means when two classes are coextensive, it's a term a logician would use when he means that, the members of these classes are identical in their characteristics. They have identical characteristics. So, loosely speaking we could say instead of the phrase "is coextensive with" we could say "is identical with" or "is the same as". That would be a looser way to say it, but the precise technical logical way to say it is "coextensive with", that is the precisely correct way to say it.
-Dennis Stephens' Lecture titled "The Exclusion Postulate"
COMING A CROPPER: fall heavily. "He came the most appalling cropper—I think he knocked himself out"
suffer a defeat or disaster. "The club's challenge for the championship has come a cropper"
COMM LINE OR COMMUNICATION 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 or COMM LINE exists between them.
COMPULSIVE GAMESPLAY: See GAMES CONDITION.
CREATIVE PROCESSING: processing wherein the being creates things as opposed to subjective processing, which is looking inside one’s mind, or objective processing which has to do with the environment.
CROSS-PACKAGE: To take a goal out of one goals package and oppose it to a goal which is out of another goals package.
DELUSION: a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, as a symptom of serious mental illness.
DIANETICS: The word Dianetics is derived from the Greek dia, meaning “through,” and nous, “mind or soul.” Dianetics is further defined as “what the soul is doing to the body.” When the mind adversely affects the body, it is described as a psychosomatic condition. Psycho refers to “mind or soul” and somatic refers to “body.” Thus, psychosomatic illnesses are physical illnesses caused by the soul.
DICTUM OF ARISTOTLE: A thing cannot both exist and not exist simultaneously.
DISSOCIATION: the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected. When one has this as a psychological condition, he will believe there are entities in his mind that are separate from himself. Dennis elaborates on this in one of the '90s lectures with this same title.
DILETTANTE: One who studies an art or science for amusement without serious study.
DRAMATIZING: "Acting out". That would be in its simplest terms.
EFFORT BAND: “Some people will do this, they are stuck in effort. And they try and project mentally using the effort band” (from Dennis' lecture "Dissociation"). Thought, emotion and effort are well known in the subject of Scientology. When he talks about those stuck in effort, or operating “in the effort band (level) he’s using physical effort instead of just postulating, which would be at the level, or band of thought.
8-C: A process wherein the auditor takes direct control of the preclear.
ELECTRO-ENCEPHELOGRAPHY: measures electrical activity in different parts of the brain and the recording of such activity as a visual trace.
E-METER
E-METER: An electronic instrument that measures mental state and change of state in individuals and assists the precision and speed of auditing. The pictures in the mind contain energy and mass. The energy and force in pictures of painful or upsetting experiences can have a harmful effect upon an individual. When the E-Meter is operating and a person holds the meter’s electrodes, a very tiny flow of electrical energy passes down the wires of the E-Meter leads, through the person’s body and back into the E-Meter. When the person thinks a thought, looks at a picture in their mind, re-experiences an incident or shifts some part of the reactive mind, they are moving and changing actual mental mass and energy. These changes in the mind influence the tiny flow of electrical energy generated by the E-Meter, causing the needle on its dial to move. The needle reactions on the E-Meter tell the auditor where the charge lies, and that it should be addressed through auditing.
ENTITIES— things in the person’s mind that he believes someone else put there, that are not himself and that he has no control over.
ENGRAM: ENGRAMS are mental image pictures of pain and unconsciousness of past events. They exist in the REACTIVE MIND. See REACTIVE MIND.
ERASING: The removal all of the charge (upset) to the point of vanishment.
FALL AFOUL OF: to get into trouble because of not obeying or following (the law, a rule, etc.) “After leaving home he fell afoul of the law.”
FLAT: When a process or exercise no longer produces change it is said to be FLAT.
FLOAT/FLOATING NEEDLE: On an e-meter when an incident, subject or process is no longer “charged” the needle will smoothly go back and forth. Also called an “F/N”. See E-METER and CHARGE.
FLUNK! What is uttered by a coach to the student or a course supervisor to a student in a Scientology Academy when the student gets something wrong in a drill.
GAME: is a contest in conviction between opposing postulates. -TROM A Games Manual.
A game, then, can be regarded as a conflict of postulates wherein a being endeavors to convince his opponent of his own postulate, while resisting the postulate arrayed against him. Games are all about getting the other person to agree with you, if you want to use the simplest of definitions for it.
GAMES CONDITION or COMPULSIVE GAMESPLAY: These two terms, the former originating in Scientology, and the latter in TROM are comparable in meaning. A GAMES CONDITION occurs when one’s attention is fixated on a game and playing it against his own will. COMPULSIVE GAMESPLAY is games play wherein the game has become serious and he “must” play it.
There are games in life that one can voluntarily play. When the word “must” is added to the postulate, then the postulate becomes compulsive. This is why the words “must”, “forced” and “prevented” are used when running levels 4 and 5 of TROM. You are handling the upsets caused by COMPULSIVE GAMESPLAY.
GOALS PACKAGE: Life has four basic abilities. [know/not-know/to make known (bring into existence)/to make not-known (to take out of existence)] Every purpose in life must manifest in line with one or other of these basic abilities. The totality of these manifestations regarding a purpose we call the goals package of that purpose. Thus, all possible manifestations of the goal ‘To know’ are within the ‘To be known’ goals package.
GPM or GOALS PROBLEM MASS: The simplest definition would be "a mass that is formed as a result of two opposing goals". We have one short video explaining this, and a longer more advanced one if you wish to gain a more thorough understanding of this Scientology term and how it relates to TROM.
INSANITY 1. “… the being will be found to be in a games condition with his own mind. As the mind only contains his own past postulates, he cannot possibly ever win the game against his own mind. It is the one game he can only lose. Extreme examples of failure in this game we call insanity.” (TROM A Games Manual) 2. Holding a postulate and its opposite (not its opposition) at the same time. “I am going to China and not going to China” or “I know and I not-know”. 3) Believing something can exist and not exist at the same time. 4) When a compulsive games player has no class to enter into when he is overwhelmed, he goes insane. Dennis gives an example of this quoting from "The Barber of Seville" where the king commanded that all men must be clean-shaven, but only those who don't shave themselves must be shaved by the town barber. But since the town barber was someone who shaved himself and was being shaved by the town barber, he could not properly follow the edict and went insane.
IONIZATION: Infusing a mass with a postulate.
"IONIZE BLACK" (OR SOME OTHER COLOR): (For a being that is capable of perceiving such) When IONIZING a mass, the being doing so will see it turn black or some other color.
IPSO-FACTO: by that very fact or act.
"The enemy of one's enemy may be ipso facto a friend"
JUNIOR PACKAGE/JUNIOR GOALS PACKAGE: The basic goals package is the to know/not know/to be known/to not be known postulate package. Other “packages” are called JUNIOR PACKAGES and are on other subjects but follow the same structure i.e. the “to eat” junior goals package will be structured to eat/not eat/ be eaten/not be eaten. All JUNIOR PACKAGES are part of the basic package.
JUNIOR UNIVERSE: 1. A junior universe is a universe that is totally within the physical universe. Examples of junior universes are cats, kings and coal heavers, any class of identities or objects are within the class of junior universes. All junior goals packages, whether life or non-life, are within the class of junior universes.
2. Junior goals packages, both life and non-life, are junior universes, and are therefore erasable at Level 5C. One merely converts the verb of the package into a noun, and then formulates the limited basic package just like for any other junior universe.
An example is the goal ‘To eat’. The noun form of the verb to eat is eating. Thus, eating becomes the subject matter of this junior universe.
MASS: You could say “substance”. While significance is the idea, mass is the thing itself.
MENTAL MASS: The pictures in the mind contain energy and MASS (Mass in this sense being a body of matter). The energy and force in pictures of painful or upsetting experiences can have a harmful effect upon an individual. This harmful energy or force is called charge. “The entire secret of making any mental mass vanish is to re-evaluate its importance to present time realities to the point where it is considered so trivial that there is no longer any need to keep it in existence; at which moment the mass can be easily not-known and will promptly vanish.” (From The Resolution of Mind a Games Manual)
METER: See E-METER
MOCK-UP: 1. To MOCK-UP is to get an imaginary picture of 2. We call a mental image picture a MOCK-UP when it is created by the being or for the being and does not consist of a photograph of the physical universe.
MOSMAN: A suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
MOTIVATOR: A motivator is an aggressive or destructive act received by the person or part of life. (Scientology Handbook website) “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.” (From The Resolution of Mind a Games Manual)
NEEDLE: E-METER NEEDLE see E-METER
“NEEDLE FREES UP”/“NEEDLE WOULD TIGHTEN” (On an E-meter): In the passage from TROM a Games Manual: “If I started to run the process the needle would tighten. Overrun? Yes. Needle frees up.” Dennis is using an E-METER to run processes on himself. The E-METER needle tightens because he is trying to run a process that is “flat” (does not need to be run). On this realization the needle “frees up”. See OVER-RUN, E-METER, PROCESS.
NIRVANA: An ending of all games by the adoption of complementary postulates and so the achieving of a non-game situation. Eternal bliss and oneness with all life. A roughly equivalent state to the no-game condition.
The original Sanskrit etymology nir + vana might be ‘not driven’ or ‘not blown’
NON-LIFE GOAL: 1. A goal that in any way opposes life’s basic urge in the universe: To be; To Exist; To be Known. 2. A destructive goal
NON-PERCEPTION SCREEN: “Early on many beings find themselves plagued by ‘non-perception’ screens, which prevent them from perceiving their own creations. As you progress through the levels you’ll become more and more aware of these screens. Finally you’ll vanish them, and thereafter be able to perceive your own creations.” (From TROM a Games Manual) …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 ‘Not-know’ screens are of an entirely different texture to the screens associated with the ‘Be Not-known’ postulate, being much harder and almost brittle.” (From TROM a Games Manual)
NOTS: When Dennis talks about NOTs he is referring to New Era Dianetics for OTs, a process run on OTs (The OT levels are upper levels of the Scientology Bridge, their route to spiritual freedom) which involves handling “Body Thetans”. (a thetan is a spiritual being, the actual soul as opposed to his mind or body) which Hubbard believed were real and needed to be audited on these levels, as opposed to (what we can gather) Dennis thought were simply mock-ups or in other words one’s own creations. Dennis talks about how the e-meter (the electronic device used in Scientology auditing) reacts to his running these processes. Without giving a course on the e-meter and how it works, what Dennis is saying is that the meter did not react like it normally would in a session that was producing any case gain or in other words, progress. The tone arm did not move (the tone arm being the dial on the e-meter that adjusts the needle back when it hits the pin on either side), which indicated nothing was happening, and when the needle ‘frees up’ it’s an indicator that something has been correctly spotted. In this case, the process was ‘flat’ on him (didn’t need to be run). Dennis is making two points here: that when he was researching his own upper-level technology, Scientology processes no longer worked on him, as he’d already gone beyond Hubbard’s works. The other point is that the NOTS procedure is invalid, and the idea of body thetans is false.
NULLING: 1. Run to the point of no change (applies to all levels of TROM). 2. (as pertains to level five of TROM) Partial erasure of a goals package is called nulling that package. Nulling a package reduces the intensity of the compulsive games condition between the legs of the package. If a goals package can be nulled it can also be erased. See GOALS PACKAGE & ERASING
OBJECTIVE PROCESSES: Processes intended to orient the individual in present time by having him touch things, look at things, and move around his body.
One very well-known lower-level type of objective processing is called “CCH” which stands for control, communication, and havingness. They are a set formula for improving the person's degree of control of his mind and body; his free communication with his environment unaffected by reactive stimuli (things that would restimulate his case) and his tolerance and ability to reach his environment (“Havingness” being that last- the ability to reach his environment).
OCCAM/OCCAM’S RAZOR: …has been assimilated into our culture as the widespread layman's formulation that "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one."
OPENING PROCEDURE BY DUPLICATION is an objective process (a process to get one in touch with the physical universe and increase his ability to control himself and communicate rather than processes where one directly addresses the mind) where the auditor asks the preclear to walk across the room where on each side is an object the auditor asks the preclear questions about.
OPPOSITE GOAL (OR POSTULATE) VS OPPOSITION GOAL (OR POSTULATE): “The opposite of knowing is loosely regarded as not-knowing. However, the opposition postulate to ‘To know’ is ‘To not be known’. This is not a matter of conjecture, but of logical necessity” (From TROM a Games Manual)
OPPTERM OR OPPOSITION TERMINAL: A terminal is one who can give or receive communication. This is a Scientology term and it should be noted that in the subect of Scientology, Hubbard handled conflicts in the mind sometimes by saying a particular terminal or entity opposed one rather than handling the postulates involved. In TROM, we know that the only thing that can oppose a postulate is the specific postulate that opposes it. For example, in Scientology if your goal was ‘to know’ then your oppterm is someone that’s going to prevent you from knowing, like a police officer or someone like that. In TROM, the only opposer to the postulate ‘to know’ is the postulate ‘to not be known’.
OVER-RUN: Continuing a process past the optimum point. (Dianetics & Scientology Technical Dictionary)
OVER-RUN SYMPTOMS: Confusion, unwellness, mis-emotion etc.
OVERT ACT: 1. An act committed, considered harmful, and justified. 2. Overwhelming the postulate of an opponent in a game.
OVERWHELM: 1. Postulate failure 2. Upset
In games play, a person's postulate of "must know" can OVERWHELM you if they can force you into "to be known". Let's say you were hiding, and someone discovers you. Your postulate of "must not be known" has failed, having been overwhelmed by the other's postulate to know you. You are now in the "to be known" postulate as a result of overwhelm.
PACKAGE: see GOALS PACKAGE
PAN-DETERMINED POSTULATE: When you postulate "to know" you are making a self-determined postulate. At the same time, you are postulating the other "to be known". That latter is your PAN-DETERMINED POSTULATE. It's what you want your "to know" postulate to result in. You want to know something, and you are successful when you make that something known.
Each of the four basic POSTULATES has its PAN-DETERMINED twin.
To know-----To be known
To not know----To not be known
To be known----To know
To not be known---To not know
PAN-DETERMINISM: Determining the action of self and others (non-self)
PARADOX: Anything that conflicts with one’s preconceived ideas or notions.
PD POSTULATE: PAN-DETERMINED POSTULATE
POSTULATE: Purpose, Intention, Goal and Postulate can be regarded as synonyms.
A POSTULATE is a causative consideration; it is a consideration which contains an intention that something will occur. (The flavor of its meaning is contained in the old Latin ‘postulare’ - to demand.)
PRECLEAR: In Scientology, the person receiving auditing.
PRENATAL COITUS ENGRAMS OF BOOK ONE: Engrams that occur before birth as told in Book One (Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard)
PRESENT TIME PROBLEM: a situation in the present that the preclear has rather than something from the past.
“PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS” is the name of a Scientology process that handles just that.
PROCESS: A set of questions asked by an auditor to help a person find out things about himself or life. (Scientology Technical Dictionary)
PSYCHOTIC BREAK: What is sometimes politely referred to these days as a ‘nervous breakdown’
PT: PRESENT TIME. Now.
PURPOSE: all purposes are systems or methods of knowing, not-knowing, making known, or making not-known.
REACTIVE MIND/ REACTIVE BANK/ BANK: The stimulus-response mind that operates underneath the person’s awareness or volition. The REACTIVE MIND stores ENGRAMS which are mental image pictures of pain and unconsciousness of past events.
RESTIMULATION: The past is brought into present time by something in the environment RESTIMULATING it. For example, if there is a certain object or person in an engram, and the person sees it in the present, the effects of that engram may be RESTIMULATED. See ENGRAM.
RETREAD: In Scientology, it’s when one re-studies a course they’ve taken.
RI/REPAIR OF IMPORTANCES: Could also be thought of as “replacement of importances”. TROM exercises reduce mental mass and therefore can leave one craving the mental mass he has lost by doing the exercises. These mental masses or IMPORTANCES can be replaced by the being himself by doing the REPAIR OF IMPORTANCES (RI) exercise. See also MENTAL MASS in this glossary.
"SCALE": Could be a reference to the TONE SCALE, which is defined here.
SCREEN: See NON-PERCEPTION SCREEN
SD POSTULATE: SELF-DETERMINED (one’s own) POSTULATE
SELF-DETERMINISM (SD): Determining the action of self.
SENSATION 1. Particles which occur at the boundary between opposing postulates. 2. A sort of mass. 3.That which is generated at the boundary between opposition postulates in games play. 4.Occurs at the boundary when the classes of self and not-self are in conflict with each other.
SELF-RECRIMINATION: The act or an instance of blaming or censuring oneself.
SERVICE EFFECT/SERVICE FACSIMILE: In the older subject of Scientology, a SERVICE FACSIMILE was known as a computation to make self right and others wrong. This can be in the form of an old illness or injury the being uses to gain sympathy and support from others. It "serves" him. In TROM, SERVICE EFFECT has pretty much the same meaning. Click here for the TROM Video Glossary entry.
SIGNIFICANCE: the significance of a thing is simply the purpose plus its importance.
SKIN GALVANOMETER: SEE E-METER
SOMATICS: Physical sensations like pain, discomfort, etc.
"THE SCALE": Could be a reference to the TONE SCALE, which is defined here.
THETA PERCEPTICS: The abilities a thetan (spiritual being) has that are not just the body’s senses like touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, etc.
TIME 1. The postulate “Continue to be known”. 2. The postulate that introduces persistence into the creation. 3. (Scientology) a postulate that space and particles will persist.
TIMEBREAKING: The general action of simultaneously viewing a ‘then’ and a ‘now’ scene. The name derives from the fact that the action of timebreaking breaks the temporal separation of ‘then’ and ‘now’, and thus removes the command power of the past scene so Timebroken.
TIME TRACK (ALSO KNOWN AS “THE TRACK”): The time track of a person is made up of all of the things that a person has experienced in their life.
TONE SCALE: The tone scale is a scale of emotions Hubbard plotted on a chart, at first ranging from death, to apathy, to fear, anger, antagonism, boredom, conservatism, cheerfulness and finally enthusiasm for a human being. He later expanded the tone scale to include spiritual states, and I am not going to include all of them, starting at total failure at the bottom, then up through the human scale, then past the human scale all the way up to Serenity. Simply put, (in the lecture "Dissociation", when Dennis says, “they were starting to come up scale and OT” he means that the individual was getting better.
UP THE SCALE: SEE TONE SCALE
VALENCE: 1. An identity assumed unwittingly (in games play).
“All valence shifts involve the adoption of a new identity, whether real or imagined.”
VALENCE SHIFT: Is not merely a change of postulate. It is taking on the exact postulate that was leveled at you. This happens two times in the Postulate Failure Cycle, when one is forced to know and retaliates with forcing to know, and the other when one is forced to be known so he forces the other to be known. Click here for the TROM Video Glossary entry.
VIS/VIZ: namely; in other words (used to introduce a gloss or explanation).
"the first music reproducing media, viz., the music box and the player piano"
synonyms:
namely, that is to say, that is, to wit, to be specific, specifically, in other words, to put it another way;
WITHHOLDS: An overt that is WITHHELD or not made known to others.
ZUGZWANG: This phenomenon is most thoroughly described in the lecture "The Compulsion to Move". A simpler way to put it would be "a no-win situation".
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