How to erase an object from your mind

The universe in which we live consists only of life and postulates. The old word ‘postulate’ has recently come into use as an English-language equivalent of saṃskāra, in the sense of an act of will, decision, purpose, or causative consideration. Entities, identities, objects and masses are the product of postulates interacting in games, and can be resolved back into these postulates.

Stephens (1992) developed a process that demonstrates that anything we perceive as an object consists only of postulates. Resolve these postulates and it is found to disappear. Represented as an algorithm, the process is as follows:

1. Name the object, or living organism.

2. What is the function of a ­­­­­_____?

(or for an organism, What is the purpose of a ­­­­­_____?)

3. Timebreak anything that appears.

4. Return to 2.

If no more answers to 2,

5. What purposes have you had towards a _____?

6. Timebreak anything that appears.

7. Return to 5.

If no more answers to 5,

8. Return to 2

If no more answers to 2,

9. End

In steps 3 and 6, timebreaking is the basic process of handling memories by viewing them in present time as described by Stephens (1979). Essentially the person looks at the area of each purpose, perhaps asking themself “How do you feel about that?”, to find material to timebreak.

Although primarily a demonstration, this process may have some application in therapy. A person bothered by an irrational fear of spiders could erase “spiders” from their mind, and from their experience of the world. Or someone with a paraphilia for stiletto heels can erase “stiletto heels” – always supposing that they want to.

Stephens noted that it is quicker to erase an object by running it as the subject of the basic goals package (Know, Not Know, Be Known, Not Be Known), for example “Must know spiders” and so on. However, if the object is involved in gameplay with a junior goal such as ‘Eradicate’, it becomes imbued with a purpose from that goals package. It will not erase by making it the subject of the basic package as long as the person considers the junior goal to be separate from the basic package.

Finding all the purposes eliminates any junior goals packages that may involve this object. In the end you may be left with one of the four legs of the basic goals package as its “actual” purpose.

For example: Once I was bothered by recurring thoughts of a certain book that I had lost. I set out to erase this book from my mind using the algorithm above. The purposes that came off first were to do with the book as a collectible, as an ornament to admire, as a possession to be proud of, as property that might be sold at a profit. But the basic purpose of this book, or any book, is Be Known – it exists to make something known.

And whenever an object is erased, a complementary subject is necessarily erased as well. From the pratītyasamutpāda, we know that subjects and objects are mutually dependent. The observer and the observed form a unity (Spencer-Brown, 1969). So if a person runs the algorithm given above, the question “What purposes have you had…” will run out the postulates that they made in the class of self, just as “What is the purpose of …” runs out the complementary postulates that they consider the object to have. Erasing those scary spiders also erases the personality who was scared of spiders.

But don’t worry; everyone has a vast stack of personalities or selves that they have created by living out one game after another. Resolving the mind is like peeling pages one by one from a very thick notepad. If a person really did erase all their selves they would be in the condition that Buddhists call nirvāṇa; and I’ve never met anyone who has got that far.

-oOo-

References

Spencer-Brown, G. (1969) Laws of Form. (Allen & Unwin: London).

Stephens, D.H. (1979) The Resolution of Mind.

Stephens, D.H. (1992) The Unstacking Procedure. Audio recording of 3 November 1992, available here.

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