Vengeance

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TERMINOLOGY:

GOALS PACKAGE: The most fundamental goals package is to know, to not know, to be known and to not be known. That would be the four manifestations of the goal ‘to know’. Another goals package would be ‘to see’ which would include to see, to not see, to be seen and to not be seen.

ANALYTICAL MIND: This is early Dianetics terminology to describe one’s rational, aware mind as opposed to the reactive mind, which is the stimulus-response, irrational mind the person is unaware of.

CHITTER: to twitter, which is, (of a bird) to give a call consisting of repeated light tremulous sounds

COUNTER-POSTULATES: An early Scientology term used to describe postulates in opposition to yours. 

OVERT ACT MOTIVATOR SEQUENCE: An early Scientology theory that states when one commits an overt on you, you receive a motivator, which motivates you to commit overts yourself. 

IP BARRIER: "Insanity Point" or "Impossibility Point" barrier. This is the point where postulates clash. In TROM, insanity occurs when a postulate and its opposite occur at the same time.  Before an opponent overwhelms you with his postulate, you resist that postulate, and during that transition, there will be a point where you hold both your self-determined postulate and his pan-determined postulate
simultaneously. For instance, if you are postulatiing "must not know" and he is postulating 'must be known', before you are forced to know
him, you hold "must not know" and "must know" at the same time. Your postulate of "must know" is your self-determined postulate, and the
"must know" postulate you sense is his pan-determined postulate he is enforcing on you. (Remember, if someone "must be known" then
he is trying to bring you into "must know".

THE EXCLUSION POSTULATE: A postulate that prevents the opponent from leveling the same postulate at you that you are aiming at
them. For instance, if you "Must be known" you will postulate "Must not know" at your opponent. You are forcing your opponent to know
you and at the same time preventing him from being known.

Today is the 26th of September 1994 and I want to take up today this subject of vengeance.
Vengeance.  Vengeance  is  one  of  those  fascinating  mental  phenomena  that  people  get  so
interiorised into that they find it incredibly difficult to evaluate or to study or to find anything
about. 

You can ransack all the books on psychology in the libraries and so forth and you will find this
subject  of  vengeance  mentioned.  You  will  find  it  described.  You  will  find  examples  of  it,
particularly in clinical psychology and so forth, but no where will you find the mechanism of
vengeance explained. 

Now this is true also in Dianetics and Scientology. Ron did excellent pioneer work on the overt
act motivator sequence. He defined the overt act and he defined the motivator, both of which
you'll find defined in the write up of TROM. And you put those two together; the overt act
motivator sequence and we have the subject of vengeance. 

But nowhere in Dianetics and Scientology does Ron say why the mechanism exists. How come
the mechanism? He describes the mechanism admirably but he does not give the rationale
behind the mechanism. Apparently it was unknown to Ron. But Ron was in excellent company
because it seems to have been unknown to every other psychological researcher on this planet.
But you might say it's a perfectly natural mechanism, that if somebody does something harmful
to you it is natural and instinctive to do that harmful thing back to them. Oh? Why is it natural?
Why? That's what we've got to ask, is why. Why the mechanism? 

It's not as obvious, it's not as rational, it's not as reasonable as you might suppose. The more you
examine this, the more irrational the mechanism becomes. For example somebody comes along
and punches you. Why do you feel an urge to punch them? Of all the things you could do, of all
the infinite responses you could make, why do you feel the urge to punch them after they punch
you? Why not, as Jesus Christ said, why not turn the other cheek? You see? Of all the choices
there, why that one? 

And until you can answer that question you don't understand vengeance. But in TROM we do
understand the mechanism and we do understand why a person receiving a punch will feel
compelled to punch the person who punched him. In other words, why he feels compelled to get
into this subject of vengeance. 

Stimulus-Response Mechanism 

The mechanism of vengeance is what might be called a stimulus response mechanism. It's not a
considered response. It's not a thing of the analytical mind. It's a response mechanism. It's what
some brands of psychologists would call a stimulus response mechanism. You can see this. You
see a group of boys on their way to school in the morning. There they are walking along carrying
their books and suddenly for no reason that we know of one of the boys will turn around and
punch one of the other boys in the back. 

You know, it's a nice sunny morning and he felt like doing it so he did it. Now watch the other
boy, watch the second boy who was punched. He doesn't stand there and say, "Now, what is my
response to this?" His response is immediate and instant. He will go straight in, and attempt to
punch the boy who punched him. And preferably punch him in the same part of his body that he
received the punch. It's an exact replica. 

The stimulus is so powerful that the second lad would have to be restrained from punching the
boy who punched him. He would have to be restrained. What is the basis of this mechanism? How
come this mechanism? Well that is the subject of this talk. 

Vengeance Defined 

We ought, I suppose, at the outset give some form of definition of this subject of vengeance.
And I won't attempt to define it accurately or precisely but let's just say that loosely vengeance
can be defined or described as 'the urge to give back to a person some unwanted action that
they performed against you.' You receive an unwanted action and your urge is to give back that
unwanted action to the person who gave it to you. 

That is essentially vengeance. I mean we could chitter this up and end up eventually with a very
precise definition but I don't want to do it at this stage because until we understand the
mechanism  of  vengeance  our  definition  will  be  very  shallow,  very  incomplete.  Now  to
understand this mechanism of vengeance we have to look at the goals packages, because the
goals packages give the interchange of postulates and counter-postulates in life. 

In other words, the answer to this subject of vengeance, the reason why, of the subject of
vengeance can only be found in the subject of the goals packages. So let us look at the 'To Know'
goals package, where games play is non-compulsive. That is the most wide open of all the goals
packages, the basic goals package when games play is non-compulsive. We couldn't have any less
restrictions, in other words. 

So let's look at this and let's imagine that one person is occupying the 'Must be Known' postulate
and his opponent is occupying the 'Mustn't Know' postulate and let us assume that this game
goes on in progress and that 'Mustn't Know' wins the game. Now at the point where he wins the 

game he drives 'Must be Known' into 'Mustn't be Known'. We get the postulate change. 'Must be
Known' goes through the IP barrier and then goes into 'Mustn't be Known'. 

So, at this point in time, let's call the person who is operating on 'Must be Known' we'll call him
person A and the victor in the game is person B. B was working with the 'Mustn't Know'
postulate. Well person A receives the overwhelm and moves from 'Must be Known' to 'Mustn't
be Known'. Now person A's postulate that he's using against the universe is 'Mustn't be Known'.
But this isn't vengeance, is it? This isn't vengeance. 

There A received an overwhelm. He received something he didn't want. He didn't want to be
driven from 'Must be Known' into 'Mustn't be Known' but he was driven into it so he received an
overwhelm. His postulate was overwhelmed. He lost the game but where's the vengeance here?
The  person  overwhelmed  him.  He  was  overwhelmed  by  'Mustn't  Know'  but  his  postulate
changed from 'Must be Known' to 'Mustn't be Known'. It didn't change from 'Must be Known' to
'Mustn't Know'. He's not now firing off a 'Mustn't Know' postulate back at the person who
overwhelmed him, is he? 

So there's no vengeance. Well that's very strange isn't it? Where's the vengeance? How come
vengeance gets into games play? Well, you need some limitation of the goals package in order
for the mechanism to show itself. Now what sort of limitation do you need? Well there are two
limitations you need on the goals package to make vengeance occur, and once these limitations
are made in the goals package vengeance will occur and always occur in the goals package. So we
can nail it, we can nail it completely. Now what are these two limitations? 

Limitation #1: Games Play Must Be Compulsive 

The first limitation on the goals package is that games play must be compulsive in the postulate
set, in the goals package. In other words, the complementary postulate situation is out. That's
reduced to zero. 

Games play is compulsive. The four classes in the set have been reduced down to the two games
classes. I'll refer you to my talk on supplementary Lecture 3  [Section: How Games Become
Compulsive, Level 5 ~ Tape #3 – The Exclusion Postulate] on this subject of compulsive games play.
Just review that material, that you understand exactly what we mean by
compulsive games play. So the postulate set is reduced now down to two games classes. That's
the first requisite. Compulsive games play must occur in the set. 

Limitation #2: Postulate Set is Reduced to a One Game Class Set 

Now the second requisite is that the postulate set must be reduced down to a one game class
postulate set. Now as you recall there's a definite way of doing this. The person reduces it from a
two games class postulate set down to a one game class postulate set by simply refusing to 

occupy one of the games classes. Or, in other words, the postulates in that games class are
reduced to zero and that reduces the set down to a single game class. In the general case for the
first limitation we have to take the XY set and reduce that set down to the classes of X and (1-Y)
and that's the first game and the other game is Y and (1-X) and that's the second game. 

Well by making Y equal to zero and (1-X) equal to zero the person now has reduced it down to a
single game class postulate set of X and (1-Y) because the other classes aren't available to him.
Those postulates have been reduced to zero, he decided not to use them. So that's how it's
done. 

All this is mentioned on supplementary Lecture 3. All right now let's see how this would work out
in an actual example. Let's take the goal 'to punch', the example of the school boys. Now the
goals package, 'to punch' has the purposes 'to punch', 'to not punch', 'to be punched' and 'to not
be punched'. 

Reducing that down to a one game class postulate set, let's reduce it down to the class of 'to
punch' and 'to not be punched'. That's the single game class, 'to punch' and 'to not be punched'.
The game of 'to be punched and to not punch' is reduced to zero. Nobody wants to be punched. 

Now let's look at a game situation. We have player A, he's occupying the 'to punch' role and
player B is occupying 'to not be punched' role and both of them have got this set reduced down
to a one game class postulate set. Right? This time player A wins the game. He punches and he
drives his punch home. 

So player B's postulate 'mustn't be punched' is overwhelmed. Now it goes into 'must be punched'
right? So now we have a complementary postulate situation. The game ends. Player A has won
the game. And the situation now is 'must punch' and 'must be punched', overwhelm, end of
game. 

Now let's take the viewpoint of player B. He's now driven into 'must be punched'. But he's
already agreed that 'must be punched' is not a game he can play so he can't use that postulate in
games play. He can't use the 'mustn't be punched' postulate because that's in overwhelm. He's
just lost that game, so he can't use that postulate. 

So he can't stay on that side of the goals package, can he? All the postulates on that side of the
goals package are now unavailable to him. So he has no choice but to do a valence flip over to
the other side of the package. 

So he arrives on the other side of the package and the two postulates on the other side of the
package are 'must punch' and 'mustn't punch'. But 'mustn't punch' he's already agreed is not a
playable game because the set is reduced down to a one game class. So he goes into the
postulate 'must punch' and that's the one he uses. And so he just goes ahead and punches. 

So, there is the vengeance. You see it? It's all that can happen when the postulate set is reduced
down to a single games class, vengeance is all that can happen. The person is in a 'must punch'
'mustn't be punched' game, receives a punch, he valence flips over to the other side of the
package and punches. 

That's all he can do, just like the school boy walking along the road, somebody punches him. The
only thing he can do is punch back. He has to flip over to the other side of the goals package. His
'mustn't be punched' got overwhelmed so he flips over to the other side of the goals package,
quite compulsively, and dramatises 'must punch'. And there is the explanation of the vengeance
mechanism. It's the only explanation of the vengeance mechanism. There is no other valid
explanation of the mechanism cause this happens to be the truth of the matter. 

So in TROM with our understanding of the goals packages we have for the first time, and to the
best of my knowledge, the first time in the whole of human history an understanding of the
vengeance mechanism we can actually say why it happens. For the first time we can take this
phenomena of vengeance out of the class of "Oh well, it's just human. It's just a human foible."
Take it out of the class of that and now reduce it down and say, "It happens because of so and so,
and so and so." And nail it right down to the boards. We've got it. 

Now we know that vengeance will only occur when a goals package is reduced down to a single
game class postulate set. So all we now have to ask is under what circumstances or what sort of
goals packages can be reduced down to a single game class postulate set. Well the answer is any
goals package can. 

If games play becomes sufficiently compulsive within the goals package it eventually will be
reduced down to a single game class postulate set. It can apply to any goals package, but there
are some goals packages by their very nature, which intrinsically can only have a one game class
postulate set. 

Vengeance Goals Packages 

Now what sort of goals are these? These are the highly destructive goals, the destructive goals.
To give you an example, let's take the goal 'to destroy'. Now the goal 'to destroy' has the
postulates in it 'to destroy', 'to not destroy', 'to be destroyed' and 'to not be destroyed'. Let's
give the enforcements, 'must destroy', 'mustn't destroy', 'must be destroyed' and 'mustn't be
destroyed'. Well quite clearly the only playable game in that goals package is 'must destroy'
versus 'mustn't be destroyed'. 

Now why is that? Well the other game is 'must be destroyed' versus 'mustn't destroy' but how on
earth can you win a game when your postulate is 'must be destroyed'? Every time you win with
that postulate you lose, because you're destroyed. Get it? So that is an unplayable game. 

 So the 'to destroy' goals package only has one games class in its postulates set, which is 'must
destroy' versus 'mustn't be destroyed'. So any destructive action, any goals package where the
'To Blank' postulate is a destructive postulate will contain and only contain a one game class
postulate  set  and  when  we  see  this  goals  package  in  life  we  will  always  see  vengeance
associated with it. 

It's not that there's a choice, on these goals packages or put it this way, in general when the
goals package has been reduced down to a single game class postulate set, any time we see
games play within that goals package we will see vengeance. Now you see how we've nailed it.
We've now pinpointed it. We've pinned it to the boards haven't we. We've got it, got the whole
subject of vengeance down. 

Returning to our example of the school boys we can now see the goal 'to punch'. The goals
package there has the legs 'must punch', 'mustn't punch', 'must be punched' and 'mustn't be
punched'. But the only game that's playable in that goals package is 'must punch' versus 'mustn't
be punched'. The other game of 'must be punched' versus 'mustn't punch' is an unplayable game,
because the postulate 'must be punched' is a self destructive postulate. A person can't win in life
occupying that postulate so that game is an unplayable game. 

That is why when we see the schoolboys walking on the road; one punches the other, why the
boy who is punched immediately punches back. It's all he can do. There's nothing else he can do
in the 'to punch' goals package because that goals package by its very nature has been reduced
to a one game class postulate set. 

Non-Life Goals Packages 

Now these destructive goals packages, these so-called non-life goals packages are very common,
they are very common. And each and every one of them has a single game class postulate set
and each and every one of them will manifest vengeance in the goals package. Once the person
gets into the goals package they're into vengeance. 

Now this is a tremendously valuable technical datum, gives you a tremendous understanding of
the human psyche and a tremendous understanding of this phenomenon of vengeance. You see
how the person gets into this subject of a destructive goals package. You know people spend
their whole lives in this goal of vengeance. 

You know, you can get family feuds that go on for generations and every few years the feud
bursts out and they go out and start firing rifles at each other, and killing each other and they all
come back and bury their dead and it all quietens down and they lick their wounds and they then
plot vengeance against the other family again and then a few years later it's on again and they
are killing each other again. 

And it can happen internationally. I mean, for hundreds of years the countries of Germany and
France have been at vengeance with each other. These two countries have got a constant overt
act motivator sequence. It's been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. Just read up
your history books, either Germany's invading France or France has been invading Germany and
it's been going on and on, and it will just go on and on, you see. It just goes on forever until you
understand the mechanism and can stop doing it and just erase the whole god dammed stupid
mechanism from the mind. 

Vengeance Goes on Forever 

Once the person gets stuck in a goals package which has been reduced down to a one game class
postulate set, they're into vengeance. And once into vengeance it goes on forever. There's no
end to vengeance. And that is the final thing you should know about vengeance, it never ends.
It's got no end, no postulate to end it. 

If there ever was a mechanism in this universe which ensured that the universe would jog along
forever  it  would  be  the  vengeance  mechanism,  the  overt  act/motivator  sequence.  It  just
absolutely guarantees it. You know, a person can get so far stuck into vengeance that the only
reason that he stays alive is in order to reap vengeance upon the opponent, that's the only thing
that's keeping him alive. Without that he would die [chuckle] but it's sufficient motivation to
keep him alive. 

You know it can get that bad. And the whole mechanism keeps this universe jogging along.
Keeps compulsive games play jogging along in the universe, this mechanism of vengeance, and
now we can understand it in TROM. And understanding it we can do something about it. 

Now as I say, any goals package, by compulsive games play, can be reduced down to a single
game class postulate set, but it's fairly rare on a life goals package, fairly rare. In the 'To Know'
goals package I can't conceive of a person being able to operate in life with that 'To Know' goals
package reduced down to a single game class postulate set, but there are some junior life goals
which can be. Where vengeance can occur. 

In the 'To Sex' goals package you will see vengeance and that's a life goals package. There is such
a thing as sexual vengeance. So it can happen in a junior life goals package but I can't conceive of
it happening in the basic 'To Know' goals package. It can happen in a junior life goals package. 

But by far and away the vast majority of vengeance comes about when a person gets stuck in
one of these non-life, destructive junior goals packages like 'to destroy' or 'to punch' or 'to
blame' or 'to degrade' or you know, there's an army of them, there are thousands of them. They
get stuck in one of these non-life junior goals packages and this goals package has only got a one
game class postulate set. 

And once they get into the non-life goals package their into vengeance and it's going to kill them
and it's going to destroy them eventually. But they're going to destroy an awful lot of people
around them in the mean time before it eventually destroys them. 

It's a very nasty mechanism, or to put it round the other way if we could ever end this subject of
vengeance on this planet in mankind. If we could just take mankind and end the subject of
vengeance. Get him psychologically to a point where he stopped using it, he just finishes with it,
that's it. 

We would have a utopia on this planet. If we could just end that rather stupid game called
vengeance. And it is a very stupid game, I can assure you. As you come to study this subject and
study the material I've given you on this tape you will realise not only the utter futility of
vengeance but the sheer maniacal stupidity of it. 

Well I see I'm running out of tape here and so I am going to have to close off now. So I hope this
material is of use to you and thank you very much. 

End of tape 

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