Volume 4, Issue 2, page 3

SOME FORERUNNE
of ` TOTOLOGY11
By HARDIN D. WALSH
S
OMEONE on a quiz program asked who invented the phrase, "Necessity is the
mother of invention". The contestant
didn't know, nor did I -- until I looked
it up. It was Plato -- who was not only
the mother but the father of many ideas.

Plato, who lived from about 447 B. C. to
347, did a great deal for humanity. He was
a philosopher and genius in many fields. He
brought out the concept that thoughts are
greater than things.

He had two or three pet thoughts -- the
true, the good, and the beautiful -- which he
more or less set up as orientation points
for civilization. They have been used since
more or less as goals for the better side
of livingness.

Plato made one point that I think needs
clarification.. Thoughts, he said, are absolutely immutable. Naturally, in Scientology
we sort of disputed this. You can change
your mind and you can reorient yourself in
relation to thoughts.

In our definitions, we have a term called
"stable datum", or stable data. It's a
strange term, and it does have a lot to do
with the stable of existence, or barnyard
in which we live, but it means the level of
the data or ideas from which you operate --
that which you accept as true for you. In
other words, these are the fixed ideas on
which you operate.

Plato brought out another important
point -- thoughts are far above the physical;
a very true point. For example, you think
of a drawing -- something you want to put on
paper or canvas -- but you never are quite
satisfied with what you get. As a reformed
artist, I well know this. The thought is
lever quite translatable to the physical.
the physical is only an imitation of the
real thing.

Plato used as illustration a geometric
figure. You think the figure and you put it
on a piece of paper, but it is not the
thought.

When thoughts get to be things, they are
symbols, and are less than the original
thing. This is true of trying to translate
existence into a body level. This is one
reason why we as spiritual beings -- particilarly those who have identified with bodies and have forgotten they are spirits and
lave forgotten they can have an original
thought -- this is why we are dissatisfied.
We have forgotten how to experience on the
spiritual level as well as on the physical,
and part of you knows -- the part of you that
is Totality -- that the body is a vastly limited affair. There is always this underlying dissatisfaction, because it just does1't come off.

Once we were invited to a dinner at a
famous club in Hollywood where the food is
supposed to be the best in the world, so
for three or four hours I kept thinking:
"This is going to be big". When we got
there, it didn't fit my pictures. In fact,
[ had a bit of "running out" to do after it
W, A i
RS
3)4110
1, A
By JOANNA and HARDIN ASH
What have the philosophers of the past contributed
to thg advanced thinking of today? In this series of
articles, taken from the taped lectures of Hardin and
Joanna Walsh in Los Angeles, they point out how the
'concept of Totality', as they teach it today, it not
entirely new