Taking responsibilities is not that great these days. It seems that listening to people, watching and listening to the news, that BLAME is the name of the game!
As Ron says…
“Blaming something else makes that something else cause; and as that cause takes on power, the individual in the same act loses control and becomes effect”.
A chief impediment against progress stems from a refusal by an individual to take full responsibility for his theta facsimiles. He tries to think away an unpleasant memory, blames it, plays volleyball with it, so to speak.
every ache and pain there is a memory for which a person will not take responsibility. Electing something outside his sphere of control as cause for that memory, he loses its control. Thousands of persons wear glasses because of a theta facsimile for which they refuse to take responsibility; other thousands suffer daily with headaches. And each facsimile becomes more painful or more troublesome as long as the individual allows it to control. When one individual assigns cause to another entity, he delivers power to that entity. This assignment may be called blame, the arbitrary election of cause.
Blaming something else makes that something else cause; and as that cause takes on power, the individual in the same act loses control and becomes effect. Assigning an enemy as cause, then, is a most efficacious method of making him powerful and self-weak. When one ceases to handle a theta facsimile, it begins to handle him.
When one settles down to using one’s own memory and assuming responsibility for it, its ability to harm disappears. Processing is slanted toward reconditioning the ability of the individual himself to handle his own memory package.
Perhaps the most obvious symptom of the preclear who is low on the tone scale is failure to take responsibility.
Not only is he anxious to avoid responsibility, but he assigns cause to various things by blaming others as well as his environment. Efforts towards social approval may lead him to place blame for his failings on others. Bill Jones desires to be “in the groove,” in complete ARC with everybody and everything in his environment. Everyone approves of Bill, but even so, he develops psychosomatic illnesses. He is trying so desperately to be approved by everyone that there is really no Bill left. He resigns all his independence and in short, himself. Life is restored for Bill by giving him back responsibility for his memories.
A person who constantly reiterates, “It’s my fault; I am to blame,” is sidestepping cause as much as is the individual who places blame on other sources. His pattern of thinking moves similar to this: “I’m sorry that I caused it; I’m sorry that I am cause; I’m sorry I’m alive; I regret being an active causative force.” When he regrets being cause, he is making a declaration that he is not cause. Postulating that he is not cause, he must then find something to blame. This is the mechanism of rationalization. Any and all rationalization becomes assignment of cause.
A man is late for work: Full of regret, he walks into the office, blaming others- “The car broke down. The motor wouldn’t start. My wife didn’t get me up in time, anyway.” Or he may blame self: “It’s all my fault. I never get around in time for anything. I can’t seem to do anything right.” Either way, he is failing to be cause. Contrast the difference in the person willing to accept full responsibility for his tardiness.
Entering the office buoyantly and seeing questioning eyes, some such comment as “Well, I’m late” suffices; and he plunges into work without negating to the bottom of the tone scale. This man controls environment and his own theta facsimiles.
Cause and Effect from a Lecture by L. Ron Hubbard February 1952
A different world could be created if the majority people understood and acted upon just the above data. That alone would bring about enormous change!
“Irresponsibility is first manifested by an abandonment of force. ‘I am to blame’ is an abandonment of force. It means, ‘I’ve used force for the wrong thing and therefore I am to blame. And I’m bad cause and we don’t want to be bad cause so we’re to abandon that.’ And the next thing you know the fellow’s very irresponsible.
“Because what’s responsibility, when it comes down to that? It’s willingness to own or act or use or be and lower on the Tone Scale all those things have to go through the band called force.
“That you could also call the effort band of the Tone Scale. A person gets below that effort band, no matter they can still think, they can still act and so forth, but they are not willing to handle material object and they become irresponsible for them, things around them start to become rather enMESTy.”
LRH, “Discussion of Demo: Above Agreement with Flows”, 17 Dec 52, from the Philadelphia Doctorate Course Lectures, in Research and Discovery Series volume 14 pages 620-622
