Lecture: Effort Processing: Intentions And Overt Acts (1952)

[…]

LRH: Hm-hm. Do you feel you have a guilty conscience about anything?

PC: (sighs) No, I don’t think so.

LRH: You don’t have a guilty conscience about a thing?

PC: Well, I — I started going to this church and I went for a long time and I never did go back. And I —

LRH: Let’s kick Christ in the shins.

PC: Oh! (pause) I don’t want to.

LRH: Come on, let’s kick him in the shins. (pause) What do you get?

PC: Hm ?

LRH: What do you get when you try?

PC: He’s there at church, except it’s — it’s our preacher instead of Christ.

LRH: All right. Let’s kick the preacher in the shins. (thump; pause) How does it make you feel?

PC: Terrible.

LRH: Which leg do you use?

PC: This one.

LRH: All right, kick him. (pause) Kick him hard enough to cripple him. (pause) What happened?

PC: (murmurs inaudibly)

LRH: Kick Christ in the shins. Can you? Try it. Try the effort that you’d have to make with your leg. Can you make your leg kick him? (brief pause) Try it again. You can.

PC: I . . . start to, but then I just can’t finish it.

LRH: All right. Try to kick Christ in the shins again. Get the effort it takes to stop yourself. (long pause) What happens?

PC: I stopped and he just started talking to me.

LRH: Hm-hm. All right. Let’s kick him, only let’s get that kick just a little bit further.

PC: (pause) I did then.

LRH: Hm?

PC: I did.

LRH: You did? All right, now let’s get the full effort it takes to kick him in the shins. (pause) Get it again — the full effort it takes to kick him in the shins and cripple him. (long pause) How does it make you feel?

PC: Well, that makes me feel worse, because he . . . he said that . . . that people have hurt him a lot worse than something like that.

LRH: All right, let’s kick him again — kick him in the shins; follow it all the way through. (long pause) Kick him again; follow it all the way through. (pause) What’s the sensation in your leg as you do it?

PC: Tense.

LRH: Is there an effort to hold back the kick? All right, let’s get the effort to hold back the kick. Afterwards let’s get the feeling of regret for kicking Christ. (long pause) Let’s do it again. (long pause) What happens?

PC: It doesn’t seem like I do it anymore. I mean, I do it but it just doesn’t seem like I’m mad or anything; I just don’t have any feeling.

LRH: All right. Now, look at the wound it makes when you kick him in the shins. (brief pause) All right. Now let’s run that backwards and let’s take your foot away from the shin, watch the shin miraculously heal and restore it to the place it was when you began the kick — kick him backwards, in other words. (long pause) What happens?

PC: I d-don’t think it seems possible.

LRH: Well, get the effort it takes to hold — to bring your foot back — wheww! Reverse the kick — the effort it takes to bring your foot back. (pause) Can you feel that effort? All right, try it again. Get the effort it takes to bring your foot back. (pause) All right.

PC: Hm?

LRH: Did you get the effort?

PC: Yeah.

LRH: Well, does it change — make any sensation in your leg?

PC: No, it just . . . No.

LRH: All right. Let’s kick him in the shin again. Let’s really get him there and kick him in the shin again and make an ugly wound and cripple him. (long pause) What happened?

PC: I can’t imagine why I did it. I mean, I just — I wasn’t mad or anything; I just did it and . . .

LRH: All right, let’s swing your foot in there and kick him in the shin again, and get the feeling that you might have of regretting kicking him about halfway through the kick.

PC: (pause) All right.

LRH: What have you got?

PC: I got . . .

LRH: The effort to stop the kick?

PC: Uh-huh.

LRH: Did you see your foot land anyhow?

PC: I just . . . right before it hit, well, I started to pull back and then . . . and then it . . . I saw that I wasn’t in time.

LRH: All right, do that again. Get the physical feeling it takes to do that.¹

Notes