Book: Scientology A History of Man: The Clam

Ref: Lecture: About the Press’ Tone Level: Psychometry

The Clam

A variety of incidents may intervene between the HELPER and the WEEPER. These are the evolution chain which includes jellyfish, seaweed and some other forms.

It is interesting that immobile states are most liable to have heavy incidents. It is also interesting that bulbous seaweed, uprooted and cast ashore by storms, gave Man some of his early experiences with sunlight in the absence of water. A distinct somatic of drying and itching is felt by preclears when they encounter this incident, a restimulation of the drying outer skin of the dying seaweed.

It is also interesting that bulbous seaweed is an early pattern of Man’s later general form. Jellyfish incidents are quite remarkable for their occasional aberrative force. The jellyfish sometimes drifts into a cave or grotto and is pressed against the stone by rising tide and waves, thus gaining the first facsimiles which later become a shell as in the clam. Here is an example of the principle of counter-effort molding the physical shape and necessities of forms.

THE CLAM is a deadly incident but mostly when restimulated on purpose. Although this area of the track is called the CLAM, it is improbable that the actual animal was a clam such as our razorbacks. Visios on this seem to indicate that it is a scalloped-lip, white-shelled creature. The clam was, of course, quite thoroughly fixed to the rocks and the state is very static. The Clam had many troubles. The first of these troubles is the double-hinge problem. One hinge wishes to stay open, the other tries to close. Thus conflict occurs. Here we have two control centers, both of them more or less equal in power, having no internal communication.

In the jellyfish we have the first Third Dynamic engrams where the goal is to hold together at all costs. As soon as the hinges are formed in the Clam, we have our first efforts to be completely contrary and internally at war. The solution occurs when one hinge goes into apathy and the other assumes complete control.

The hinge epicenters later become the hinges of the human jaw. Should you desire to confirm this, describe to some uninitiated person the death of a clam without saying what you are describing: “Can you imagine a clam sitting on the beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?” (Make a motion with your thumb and forefinger of a rapid opening and closing. The victim may grip his jaws with his hand and feel quite upset. He may even have to have a few teeth pulled: At the very least he will argue as to whether or not the shell stays open at the end or closed. And he will, with no hint of the death aspect of it, talk about the “poor clam” and he will feel quite sad emotionally.

The Clam had an astonishing number of adventures for so minor a creature. It would get things into its shell and be unable to get them out. It would get its shell stuck open and be unable to shut it. And it would come loose from its rocks under the surface of the water and get tossed into the broil of the surf. And it would become deserted by the tide and left to bake under a frying sun, a quite uncomfortable situation which restimulates sometimes in a sunburn.

There was or is a spore method of procreation used by the Clam. The spore was put on the inside of the lip and permitted to grow. Eventually it became large enough to become a clam on its own and would depart. There is a guardian-emotion on the part of the Clam for these spores and a sadness on their departure. But there is more to the spore than this. The spore was like a barnacle. When the Clam was cast ashore, these spores were still alive in the shell. The sun would kill the inner cells of the “barnacle” while the outer shell cells still lived. The dead inner cells would form a gas which, under the heat, would explode violently—to the agony of the living barnacle shell cells. This bursting was sudden and painful. These spores gave incidents which permitted the human teeth to have a pattern. The ancient bursting engrams are still dramatized by the teeth which, under stress, burst or feel like bursting. Running out some of these bursting incidents will take the ache out of a tooth rapidly. The “fifth nerve channel” is around the mouth and is heavy out of all proportion. A nerve channel is as heavy as it has to conduit pain away from the area. Thus I deduced that there must have been much pain in this area and that the “fifth channel” is the oldest main conduit—and so it is. Audit all such incidents for all teeth and you have permanently taken the pain out of toothache and cut down decay. By the way, a barnacle, because of this bursting possibility, at length developed a “blow-out area”—a cap which would blow easily. And teeth have such an area. It gives way and makes cavities.

The clam had many, many deaths. A scan across its deaths locates the one in restimulation. You will be amazed to find the Clam sufficiently advanced as a cellular-somatic mind to have postulates, to think thoughts.

THE CLAM is actually a group of incidents rather than a single one.

Hubbard, L. R. (1952). Scientology A History of Man (2007 ed. pp. 45-47). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.