--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Seraphita" <s3raphita@> wrote: >> >> Yes, I think your reading makes sense of the quote. Thanks. >> Curiously, William Burroughs during his time with Scientology >> became convinced that the infamous e-meter (essentially a >> crude lie-detector) > > That's what supposedly detects the engrams. I think "e" > in "e-meter" stands for "engram." > >> actually worked like a biofeedback machine controlling brain >> waves and so capable of inducing altered states of >> consciousness. > > That doesn't sound right! But what do I know... > >> (So making any comparison with meditation even >> more suggestive.) He couldn't get anyone within the >> organisation to agree with him and eventually fell out with >> their "fascist" controlling mind set. He did make the grade of >> "Clear" though. Maybe that compares with TM's CC! > > I think it's directly parallel. There are a lot of > similarities in the metaphysical teachings as well, > at least on a basic level.
The term 'engram' seems to have been in use for at least over 100 years. In his 1904 book 'Analysis of Mind' in lecture 4 - Influence of Past History on Present Occurrences in Living Organisms Bertrand Russell writes: 'The best writer on mnemic phenomena known to me is Richard Semon, the fundamental part of whose theory I shall endeavour to summarize before going further: 'When an organism, either animal or plant, is subjected to a stimulus, producing in it some state of excitement, the removal of the stimulus allows it to return to a condition of equilibrium. But the new state of equilibrium is different from the old, as may be seen by the changed capacity for reaction. The state of equilibrium before the stimulus may be called the "primary indifference-state"; that after the cessation of the stimulus, the "secondary indifference-state." We define the "engraphic effect" of a stimulus as the effect in making a difference between the primary and secondary indifference-states, and this difference itself we define as the "engram" due to the stimulus. "Mnemic phenomena" are defined as those due to engrams; in animals, they are specially associated with the nervous system, but not exclusively, even in man.' 'When two stimuli occur together, one of them, occurring afterwards, may call out the reaction for the other also. We call this an "ekphoric influence," and stimuli having this character are called "ekphoric stimuli." In such a case we call the engrams of the two stimuli "associated." All simultaneously generated engrams are associated; there is also association of successively aroused engrams, though this is reducible to simultaneous association. In fact, it is not an isolated stimulus that leaves an engram, but the totality of the stimuli at any moment; consequently any portion of this totality tends, if it recurs, to arouse the whole reaction which was aroused before. Semon holds that engrams can be inherited, and that an animal's innate habits may be due to the experience of its ancestors; on this subject he refers to Samuel Butler.' Such was the the understanding of memory in 1904. Hubbard adopted the term with his own twist. As for a clear being CC, probably it would require UC or BC to not respond to a stimulus that attacks the ego.
