TROM 101: VALENCE SHIFTS

In my talk about Pan-determined postulates, we covered how when one suffers failure that they adopt the pan-determined postulate of their opponent that overwhelmed them.

I gave examples of how If I force you to know me, and you are forced to know, then you now take on my pan-determined postulate of ‘must know’. If I prevent you from being known, you take on the postulate of must be known, and so on.

But something different will happen if, after I have forced you to be known and now you can’t help but be known to me.  Are you then going to enforce your postulate of ‘must be known’ on me?

Actually, that’s not what’s going to happen. If you are going to continue on with the compulsive game between you and me, it’s not going to be with the must be known postulate. It’s going to be with the must know postulate. In other words, I force you to be known, now you are going to force me to be known.

Now before I explain the mechanics of how this works in detail, just think of this—if I expose your secrets. If I force you to answer my questions, after I’ve completely overwhelmed you, you aren’t going to feel compelled to just keep exposing yourself and confessing to me, are you? That’s not any sort of way to get back at me. That’s not any sort of way to continue our game. You are now compelled to expose my secrets.

Think of this example, on a much larger scale. When some corrupt politician or corporation is exposed in the mass media, they don’t then just go, “OK, we did it, and here’s a long list of other things we did too.” No. That never happens. Not that I’ve ever seen. Instead, that politician or corporation is going to retaliate with all sorts of nasty dirt on those who are exposing them.

You could call it revenge, and there is a lecture Dennis gives on just that topic, but for now, let’s see why that happens when one is forced to be known, they in turn force the other to be known.

At the very beginning of the cycle of postulate failure, or the eight classes of overwhelm, we have the forcing to know overwhelm.  I aim a must be known postulate at you, and now you must know me. Well, you don’t like this, so you retaliate with a must not know postulate, turning my must be known into a must not be known. You’ve overwhelmed me now with must not know, and your pan-determined postulate of must not be known is now mine. I am now prevented from being known.

So, I take this must not be known postulate a step further. At the point you overwhelm me, I can’t help but not be known. But now, as our game continues, I have to not be known. It’s the same postulate, but now instead of it just being my reaction to your postulate, I now deliberately aim it at you. 

I am now going to hide from you. I now overwhelm you with my must not be known postulate, and you are in must not know. Since I am hiding, you can’t help but not know me. I am preventing you from knowing.

With a strong enough ‘must know’ postulate from you, you now find me. I am forced to be known. I can’t help but being known.

But now what? Am I going to now change my ‘can’t help but being known’ to “I have to be known?”

No, I’m not. Because remember, this whole game between us started with my forcing you to know me. I had to be known to you, and look what happened. That postulate failed. I’m not going to use that postulate again. I am going to use yours, and now I must know you, and you must be known. I am forcing you to be known.

Yes, I adopted your pan-determined postulate of must be known, but I can’t continue with it to get back at you. That postulate failed. So instead, I take your self-determined postulate that you leveled at me, and I level it at you.

This is called a valence shift. A valence is a role taken in games play. Some of you who’ve studied Dianetics will recognize this term. Hubbard talked about how, in an engram, I’ll just give you the short definition for now, that it’s a moment of pain or trauma, there is a winning valence, so to speak. That’s the one in the incident who, is the so-called winner in that situation, because they hurt or traumatized you.  He said later on one can act out that winning valence. 

In TROM, we can understand the exact mechanics of how this works.

In my example from the earlier talk on pan determined postulates, I also spoke of how a woman can overwhelm a man and he is forced to know her. Well, he could just compulsively want to know her after that, but he could also go into her valence and force her to know him.

Those are the two valence shifts that occur during the postulate failure cycle. You are forced to be known, so you force the other to be known, and you are forced to know, and you turn around and force the other to know you.

A more thorough explanation of how the postulate failure cycle works is in “The resolution of mind a games manual” by Dennis stephens. You’ll find it much easier reading now knowing this term and some of the others I’ve explained so far.

Send your questions and comments on this webpage to: Roger@BetterTROM.com

TROM 2023 ONLINE EDITION

HOW TO DO LEVEL ONE VIDEO