Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contra dictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accep ting both of them. To tell de liberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is nee ded, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably neces sary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on in definitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.