John Sanborn's "The Hubbard Electrometer" (1959)

Cover page

               THE HUBBARD ELECTROMETER
              WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO USE IT
               THE MANUAL OF THE E METER

                    by John Sanborn

         Based on Research and Development by L. Ron Hubbard
              Founder of Dianetics and Scientology

         Published by Hubbard Communications Office
         1812 19th Street, N.W., Washington 9, D.C.
         Copyright © L. Ron Hubbard 1959. All Rights Reserved.

        To all the preclears who held the cans
        and made this information possible,
        and to those who will use it
        further to benefit man.

Definitions

• SCIENTOLOGY: The study of the construction of universes and the role played in them by a spiritual being; and the background of masses, spaces, energy, thought and its relative positions, person to person and dynamic to dynamic. -- L. Ron Hubbard

• THE CLEAR: A person at willing and knowing cause over his own life, his environment and his surroundings, and without a reactive mind or a subconscious mind. -- L. Ron Hubbard

• THE THETA CLEAR: A clear who can create or uncreate a reactive or subconscious mind at will. -- L. Ron Hubbard

Table of Contents

• Definitions: Scientology, The Clear, The Theta Clear

• How This Manual Came About

• Chapter I The First Statement on the Electrometer (by L. Ron Hubbard)

• Chapter II The Original Theory of Operation (by L. Ron Hubbard, 1951)

• Chapter III The Hubbard Electrometer: Manual of Operation

• Chapter IV Needle Action

• Chapter V The Track Scout

• Chapter VI Terminal Assessment

• Chapter VII When the Process Is Flat

• Chapter VIII Q & A

• Chapter IX Levels of E Meter Skill

• Chapter X Clearing

• Appendix I Reality-Spotting by E Meter

• Appendix II Research Paper -- PAB 160

• Appendix III The Role of the E Meter in Clear Testing

• Reference List

How this manual came about

Obviously merely the writing or setting down of the facts herein is not a large fraction of the work behind such a manual.

The first chapter, taken from the first manuscript on the subject, which was included in similar form in the book ELECTROPSYCHOMETRIC AUDITING by L. Ron Hubbard, gives quite a bit of the early background of research. Then with the development between 1952 and 1957 of processing which used communication-lag as the observable factor in assessing the preclear, gauging his process level, and flattening the process, the E meter was not used extensively except in research. It could be said that during that period the total accent was upon producing auditors who knew everything, and who then would use an E meter, when it was re-introduced, as a precision instrument and not as a dependency.

The E meter we now have is a far cry from earlier, never standard ones. This is the Hubbard Electrometer.

The E meter has had a large role in clearing, during the past few years. It is not used in every session or in every process. It should always be used when processes which call for it are used.

In the last six advanced Clinical Courses, taught personally by L. Ron Hubbard and always carrying on a large amount of research as well as advanced training for already experienced auditors, the E meter has been fully researched and exploited and its behavior described and predicted. As compared to what he began to learn about E meter-preclear behavior from the time of the 19th A.C.C., the earlier findings of 1951 and 1952 are only a shadowy presaging. Interestingly enough, however, the material known in 1952 was probably adequate for the use it was being put to. Ron has a habit of coming up with the needed knowledge at the time needed.

We began to see the need for a new manual. Johann Tempelhoff, an auditor and staff writer, was on leave of absence in Canada, and without saying anything in advance, sent Washington a complete book manuscript containing all the up to then known material, including much from the A.C.C. lectures. Then as mest clearing began to develop into new knowledge of the road to theta clearing, E meter knowledge began to be developed about twice as fast by Ron and a new manual again became necessary. There still had been no new one published.

All we had was a very concise six-page bulletin written by L.R. Hubbard Jr. for the 5th London A.C.C. It was very good for handing to students over whom you could stand and explain and repeat and explain.

We still needed a manual for HCA's, HCS's and future HGS's, as well as for anyone who wanted to find out what it was all about.

That is what we now have. We think it will serve for quite some time to come.

John Sanborn

Washington, D.C.

August, 1959

Chapter I: The First Statement on the Electrometer

By L. Ron Hubbard

(From the original manuscript on the subject)

It has been known to a variety of beings for a very long time that thought and electrical manifestations were closely associated. This knowledge is to the sorrow of many. One can say with truth that this bit of information (the connection between thought and electrical impulses) is the most thoroughly over-worked datum known.

In recent Earth times, less than two centuries ago, the relationship between physical activity and structure and electricity was "revealed". The first experiments were upon frogs and it was demonstrated that when a frog (even a dead frog), is shot with a current of electricity, his legs jerked. The "discovery" of galvanic action had a value which was not quite discernable to the scientific eye. But, one might say, with the jerk of a frog, the electronic era of the mind bowed into view on Earth.

That datum opened -- or one might more truthfully say, re-opened -- the doors of knowledge. Along this track of knowledge have lain and will lie more abuses and benefits to beings than in any other single area of information.

If electricity could make a frog's legs jerk, it naturally followed that it would make psychotics well and sane. Thus psychotics are electric-shocked wholesale, and although it rarely, if ever, makes any of them sane, it certainly makes them jerk, which in itself is an interesting manifestation -- necessarily so since it has engaged the greatest "authorities" of "mental healing" for many scores of years.

There is an excellent method of treating psychotics with electrical fields, but it makes them better and does not make them jerk, and so has not been surveyed by subsidized authorities.

Some half a century ago the police became electrified by the discovery that electrical impulses could betray guilt, and being quite fascinated by guilt-detection in any form, the datum was slowly put into use in the form of the "lie-detector".

It has always been a popular sin to look into the mind of man and see what he really thought. This public tacit consent, grown out of a public guilty conscience, no doubt, has considerably impeded the acceptance of "lie-detectors" by juries. However, very few modern police forces are without this interesting instrument for reading the "criminal mind".

The title and operation of the police "lie-detector" are misnomers. In the first place they do not detect lies and secondly the police have known too little about the human mind to know that their instrument was actually accurate to an amazing perfection. They do not have "vagaries" or errors and, used with a knowledge of the human mind and its actual history, they demonstrate an accuracy which borders on the incredible.

The standard police "lie-detector" consists of three units. The first is a blood-pressure meter, the second is a respiration recorder, and the third is a galvanometer.

The principle of the instrument is stated to be as follows: "An individual goes under emotional stress when he knows he is telling a lie. This lie causes a change in his heart rate, respiration and sweat. By measuring the rate of change of these, it becomes possible to establish whether or not the criminal is lying."

This explanation is very roundabout and why one talks about lying at all is a wonder. The police officer is looking for a crime. The criminal under examination knows the police officer is looking for the crime and that if the police officer discovers it, the criminal will be punished. Thus fear of discovery is a considerable factor. But the actual emotion involved in the incident where the crime was committed is almost ninety percent of the charge which the police officer discovers with his recording.

A proof of this, that the charge recorded by a "lie-detector" is the emotional residual in the actual moment of the commission of the crime, was worked out and put into action by myself in 1947. On before and after "lie-detector" tests on the same crime, it was first shown that the criminal, according to the machine and very correctly, was guilty of a certain crime. The incident of the crime itself was then addressed by Dianetic processing and the entire charge of emotion removed from the incident. After tests then showed no machine reaction although the criminal was just as guilty and just as surely faced punishment if apprehended in that guilt by the machine. In the after tests the criminal lied. He stated that he had not committed the crime. The "lie-detector" agreed with him.

The "lie-detector" then is registering the emotion contained in past incidents or present time situations which depend on the charge in the past incidents. This applies to emotion. It also applies to effort and to physical pain. It applies also to thoughts when the thoughts overlie the emotion or effort.

This is very simple. A man robs a bank. As he is going through the action of robbery he is under heavy stress of apprehension, fear, anxiety and concern in general. This makes a memory, a facsimile, which contains this stress and anxiety. When this man is put on a "lie-detector", any question which tends to throw the actual incident of the robbery into restimulation causes a change to take place in his mind and thus influences his physical being.

The blood-pressure device is an actual blood-pressure measurer. Effort or emotional stress causes the heart to beat more rapidly. When the memory is touched by questioning, the heart action again approximates the way it was in the actual incident and so there is a change in the strength and the rapidity of the heart action. This records on the machine.

The third measuring device of a physical-mental change has been misunderstood. It has been thought that a galvanometer measured the sweat exuded and thereby increased electrical conductivity of the hands. This does not hold true under examination. Secretions of the sweat glands have a measurable but very slight effect on the reading.

The current which passes through the body of the person via his hands of course takes the path of least resistance. It would be completely erroneous to assume that it is in the palms of the hands that the greatest resistance (and therefore the resistance that is measured) is found. Many a hasty guess can be made at this. Fortunately it is not especially important for present purposes.

Under various stresses the body is impinged upon by the mind more and less densely, and this picture-density (or mock-up energy density) alters swiftly. This in turn alters just as swiftly as the electrical resistance.

The galvanometer portion of the police "lie-detector" measures this density-resistance factor.

That it is a thetan capability, not a mechanism of the body, is the datum as yet missing to police operators.

Of the three separate parts of the usual lie-detectors, two are impossibly complex and uncomfortable from the standpoint of the auditor. Anyone keeping a standard blood pressure meter on his arm for an hour will feel the discomfort very intensely; further, the instrument breaks down the capillaries and is physically destructive.

The respiration device tells much, but any auditor, simply by watching the preclear's chest can divine as much as the respiration device. The psychotic breathes flutteringly and sporadically, with a pattern of long pauses followed by rapid breathing. Long sighings, very deep, means grief. Yawns mean a release of an incident. Snores mean that the preclear is asleep.

Of the three possible devices, one to measure heartbeat, another to measure breathing, a third to measure density, the first two are impossible to the auditor, being uncomfortable and not very sensitive.

A device measuring density, then, must be the only useful method in current electronics which would permit one to use the datum that there is a relationship between thought and electricity.

When I first attempted to use this density factor, however, no instruments of any kind existed which were adequate to the task. A Bell engineer whom I had asked for data on it, casually informed me that one sure method of measuring body density with a trickle of electricity would be to hook electrodes into the neurones of the brain. I explained that this was impractical as it necessitated first removing the skull and at least in my field it was desirable to have patients alive. He shrugged and told me that it was still the only method.

The ordinary psychogalvanometer, the instrument used on police "lie-detectors" and others for single use, are of very little value for they are insufficiently sensitive and are too slow. Furthermore, they do not register either low enough or high enough.

In the early days I used to audit preclears by keeping my fingers on the pulse in their wrists and was crudely and unsatisfactorily able to detect when my questions were leading to a heavily charged incident. But I could tell almost as much from their hand positions and tensions. And no instrument had been manufactured which could assist.

Then in 1950 we began to develop the earliest E meters. They were the first and only instruments capable of measuring the rapid shifts in density of a body under the influence of thought. It measured them well enough to give an auditor a deep and marvelous insight into the mind of his preclears.

This instrument was not just an aid to Dianetics. It gave man his first keen look into the heads and hearts of his fellows. The nimble needle of the E meter can detect with accuracy things which would have otherwise been hidden from man forever.

Chapter II: The Original Theory of Operation

By L. Ron Hubbard, 1951

The first thing one should know to understand and operate an E meter is the concept of a facsimile.

In Dianetics it was conceived that a memory is a combination of motionlessness, its base material, and motion, the material of which the material universe is built.

This motionlessness is a "static", a "material" which has neither wavelength, space nor time. This static is capable of holding the impression of motion, wavelength, space and time.

The entire physical universe is composed of motion. From atoms to mountains, one has only vibrations which, having a pattern in space in time, behave to form gasses, fluids and solids. One could say that the physical universe itself was a series of motions, yet in motion, held on a background of motionlessness.

Consider a lake. Here the smooth surface mirrors, apparently in three dimensions, the hills and trees, flying birds, even the face of the spectator. Consider the surface the "theta" of thought, the picture in it the motion. Here is a good example of a facsimile.

A human being acts or perceives action in the physical universe. This action is more or less permanently engraved on his "theta". He has made and stored a facsimile of the physical universe.

Throughout his lifetime, an individual is perceiving and "storing" facsimiles. Anything he has ever seen or felt or heard or done is stored somewhere or somehow in his "mind".

A facsimile has a double action. It receives and it impresses. Anything which has been perceived and made into a facsimile can be activated and impressed again on the physical universe. One receives motion, one activates a facsimile and impresses motion on his environment. He has perceived what has happened to and what he has done with and to his body. Every action is stored as a facsimile. Now, to accomplish action again, he is able to take these stored facsimiles and use them to produce similar circumstances, actions and conditions.

Those thoughts which contain considerable thought, emotion or effort including pain, can be called into action once more. When these facsimiles come into action again, they have the power of creating their identical circumstances on the body.

Further, any "heavy" facsimile (one containing considerable thought, emotion, effort or pain), can be called into action on the body by another person. Suggest to a person how tired he looks and a "tiredness facsimile" will come into action and he will feel tired. An old memory of being tired activates at the suggestion of the other person and then an individual feels the primary characteristic of the facsimile -- tiredness.

A facsimile contains a recording of each perception of which the body is capable, and these number well over half a hundred. Everything and anything which can be formed of motions is included, as an impression, in a facsimile. Weight, light, soundwaves, heat, electrical fields and impulses, pressure, and quality of surfaces, all these and many more have their exact duplicates in memory. When a memory containing any one of them is brought into "restimulation", which is to say, recalled into present time, that factor of the facsimile is capable of reimpressing itself upon the physical universe. Memory, you might say, holds physical universe factors in trust and places them again into action on command.

A facsimile has, as its primary parts, (made out of the motion of the physical universe) thought, emotion and effort. The pattern of the attention units in the facsimile determines the emotion in part; wave length determines it as well.

Pain is an attention unit pattern of intense confusion. When a facsimile contains pain, the facsimile is "heavier", which is to say, contains more compact motion, than other facsimiles. Similarly, a facsimile containing heavy emotion is "heavier" than other facsimiles. A facsimile which contains heavier effort is again more dense than other facsimiles. Thus, the difference amongst facsimiles. One is dense and confused, another is light and containing even, flowing waves. Another is scarcely discernable, so fluffy is the perception it maintains.

The auditor should fully understand that a facsimile has the ability to cause a reaction in the material universe by imposing itself again upon the physical universe.

If you want to test this, when you will be working with your E meter, place the electrodes in the hands of a person. Then pinch that person. You will see the E meter duck. Then tell the person to go back to the moment you pinched him and "feel the pinch" again. He will do so and you will see that the needle ducks just as it did when you first pinched him. In other words, you made a facsimile containing pain when you pinched him. Now you command the facsimile to come back and you see it read again on the meter just as it did when you pinched him. If you make him go through the pinch several times, you will find the needle action grows less and less. This, in essence, is a primary principle in Dianetics: that facsimiles exist. It is a prime factor in Dianetic processing that facsimiles can be reduced in intensity.

[NOTE: The near decade which has followed this writing on the subject of the facsimile and the reduction of its intensity has strengthened rather than altered the findings. The facsimile is found throughout subsequent literature. -- J.S.]

A facsimile is a "picture" in motion. When the picture comes into play again, it produces motion. When it is not in play, it is not producing motion.

The relative thought, emotion and effort of a facsimile, then, produces, when the facsimile is called into present time, relative thought, emotion and effort on the body and even in the environment.

Some action or motion happens to a person. Whether he is asleep or awake (as the E meter will prove for you if you ask what happened during sleep or any unconsciousness) that action or motion will be recorded as a facsimile. During the moment of the recording, the body is tense or limp, emotionally charged or careless, under physical strain or without such strain. When the facsimile is called into presence, by being attracted by some similar circumstance in the environment, it imposes again upon the body the same conditions as when it was received -- or if only lightly recalled, a shadow of those conditions.

The E meter works on a very easily understood principle. It measures the relative density of the body. The relative density is changed as the facsimiles change. The E meter then registers shift in thought. It registers in particular shifts in thought relating closely to the questions asked by the E meter operator. The operator asks, the facsimiles shift under his asking. The E meter measures the shift and thus the mind is read.

If you understand the workings of a facsimile, it is very easy to understand the workings of an E meter and to audit with it. If you are a wizard in the field of electronics, if you have a phi beta in mechanics and a magna cum laude in meters and yet do not understand facsimiles, you will not get any results. But if you are an utter dub on electronics, meters and physics and yet understand facsimiles, an E meter will work for you in a beautiful and awesome style.

So if HE is an expert on wires and solder and you are not, if HE knows all about ohms and you only know about omens, but if YOU know your facsimile theory and HE doesn't -- don't be awed. You will be able to make an E meter play Strauss while he can only make it play "Where is the blasted part" on the repair bench.

In short, and I cannot say it enough or with loud enough capitals, the art of using an E meter does not depend in the very least upon a knowledge of electronics. It depends upon a knowledge of facsimiles. If you have enough mechanical knowledge to turn on a dial switch or adjust a needle, you have all the mechanical skill needed to run this instrument.

Once the auditor knows the theory of what is happening and knows what the facsimiles are doing, or are capable of doing, he can become an artist with an E meter. His preclears will clear rapidly, his auditing time per case reduces as much as an hour where he needed fifty or a hundred before -- but actually there is no time comparison for without the meter he cannot get comparable results. One has to be a meter auditor to produce optimum results on meter processes.

The E meter is a sensitive but sturdy instrument. You cannot do very much to harm one. The principle on which it works is very simple. Electricity comes through the machine and is controlled in intensity by the circuits and resistances in the machine. A very small trickle of this electricity is permitted to run from one electrode (the can which the preclear holds), down through the wires, into the meter itself, out through the terminal and up the other wire to the second electrode (the other can), through the preclear's body and so into the first electrode.

There is a very faint current of electricity running through the body of the preclear during the entire time that he is holding the cans.

This current of electricity is a very constant flow of a very minute amount. This is the secret and the superiority of the machines. Any old fashioned galvanometer might work except that it varies wildly every time somebody turns on a light or re-tunes a radio. A $100,000 electroencephalograph also puts current through the body that is faint enough to register the effects of different thoughts, but the patient has to be in a wire cage to cut out electrical fields which come from car generators, the nearby trolley line or the doorbell. The current has to be graduated through fancy transformers, specially cooled and balanced. And this hundred thousand dollar wonder isn't as much use to an auditor as his fingers on a preclear's pulse.

We are indeed fortunate to have the E meter. To read the preclear with an E meter does not require major surgery, but only that he hold two tin cans.

And the E meter is never wrong. It sees all; it knows all. It tells everything.

Chapter III: The Hubbard Electrometer: Manual of Operation

The Hubbard Electrometer is built upon a chassis of rectilinear shape 9-1/2 inches by 5-1/2 by one and 9/16th -- with this last brought to about 2-1/2 inches when meter face and two knobs are included.

There is a handle at left middle under the word RANGE. This is called the Tone Arm. Its scale is measured out in six numbered sections. The "2" location is marked with the letter F. The "3" location is marked with the letter M. These are the female and male CLEAR settings.

The meter face, covering nearly half of the right hand side of the instrument, shows the needle positions for battery test and for "Set Needle Here", which is the position to which you always return the needle (by adjusting the Tone Arm) when it has moved out of range. The directions of "rise" and "fall" are given. The meter face bears the trademark "Hubbard Electrometer -- for use in Scientological Clearing", a not unimportant item as it indicates that you have the right meter for the job.

Below the meter face is found a socket, where you plug in the electrode leads, and a small hole for the insertion of a knife or nail file to the centering device.

At bottom center is found a knob above which is printed "sens.", and around which is printed a numbered scale of multiples of sensitivity. This is called the sensitivity knob and its action can be likened to a magnifying glass, or the volume on a TV set. It magnifies or makes more noticeable the motion of the meter needle. At the bottom of the scale surrounding the knob is printed "batt test", and with the knob clicked into this position you can read the battery test indicated on the meter card.

The back of the Hubbard Electrometer is easily removed (4 screws) for battery replacement and repair entry.

A seven foot lead wire plugs into the single socket and separates near the other end with two clips for attaching two common tin cans (the standard E meter electrodes). These are held by the preclear.

How to Test the Battery

Click the sensitivity knob off, to "batt test", and click the Tone Arm on. Look at the meter needle. If the battery is up the needle will swing over to the area marked "Battery test" on the meter card.

Always test the battery before putting the preclear on the cans.

Always click off the Tone Arm when meter is not in use.

Always unplug the lead wire when not using the meter, even for a coffee break. This precaution prevents the meter from being floored by someone accidentally kicking at the wire.

How to Center the Meter

The meter should be centered in such a way that with the lead plug pulled out and the tone arm at "2" the SENSITIVITY knob can be swung around almost to "16" without moving the meter needle in either direction.

Unplug the meter. Have the sensitivity ON. Set the tone arm at "2". Note the position of the meter needle. Swing the sensitivity knob around. If the needle does not move, or does not move anywhere more than a sixteenth of an inch, it is CENTERED. (We are not yet considering WHERE the needle is registering on the dial. Disregard that now.)

If the meter is not centered the needle will have moved either to right or to left. Inserting a nail file in the centering hole (lower right), turn. You will see that the needle will move in the direction counter to the direction in which you turn the file.

It usually takes several adjustments to find the exact one. The rule to follow is that the needle should be adjusted back in the opposite direction from where it was going when it shifted on test. A little practice with it makes it a quick routine.

Once you have centered the meter, NOW notice WHERE the needle is registering on the dial. You want it somewhere on the "set needle here" area, or a little above. Temperature has some effect on this, and centering should be checked daily. A weak battery will of course also affect the setting.

Why the Meter is Centered

We center the meter so that without changing the basic needle position we CAN change the sensitivity. This makes it possible to get EXACT meter readings.

Why it Reads at "2"

The meter has a "2" tone arm setting when turned on without the cord plugged in because a 5,000 ohm resistor automatically closes the circuit. This is built into the E meter so that the above (centering) can be done.

How to Connect Up the Preclear

Clip the lead wires on to the cans, push the plug all the way into the socket (lower right), hand the cans to the preclear. The preclear should hold the cans in a comfortable grip, exerting no effort or pressure beyond what is natural and easy. He should not have to give special attention to maintaining the grip. He will most comfortably hold the cans in his lap or with his arms resting on the arms of the chair, if any. Don't tell the preclear to "relax". It's a button.

The cans should be separate. If they touch it does not harm the meter but of course cannot be read because it is shorted out.

How to Set the Tone Arm and Needle

Having connected up the preclear, move the tone arm up (clockwise) or down (counterclockwise) as necessary to move needle into position at the point at which you previously centered the meter.

The tone arm is used to correct or return the needle to this position. The position of the tone arm with the needle in the base position (normally the "set needle here" area) gives you your tone arm READING.

Example: if the tone arm is adjusted to 2.5 in order to set the needle, then the preclear is said to be "reading at 2.5".

You will notice that a drop on the needle dial is to the right, and that a rise of the tone arm is to the right. Thus the action of repositioning the needle by moving the tone arm is something like dragging the needle back to position.

The way to get used to this is of course to play around with the meter with yourself or anybody on the cans. As the needle changes keep adjusting it until it is second nature to you to move the tone arm the right way.

Don't Over-Set the Tone Arm

Do not reset the tone arm every time the needle changes. There are two reasons for this: (1) while you are moving the tone arm you might also be covering up the action of the needle; this also tells you that when you do reset the tone arm you should do it quickly; (2) when you get, for instance, a half-dial drop, and the needle is pointing around 1 o'clock, you have a reference between it and where it was before it dropped. If you immediately reset the tone arm, you lose this reference.

Warm-up

Usually for thirty seconds or so after the preclear picks up the cans the needle will drop. This is caused by the improvement of the connection by the warming up of the cans. This is not preclear reaction.

The transistors warm up some, which should be taken into account. It is a good practice to have the instrument turned on a couple of minutes before starting to take meter readings.

How to Set the Sensitivity

Having centered the meter and put the preclear on the cans and set the tone arm, turn the sensitivity straight up and ask the preclear to squeeze the cans (it should be a fairly fast, firm squeeze), then note how much of a needle drop he gets. If the needle goes over and hits the pin, turn the sensitivity down to "1" and repeat. If you then get less than a third of a dial drop, turn the sensitivity up to the first dot above "1".

With as many squeezes as necessary, get the sensitivity set to a point where the preclear's squeeze produces roughly one-third of a dial drop.

You have now made the preclear legible.

This is not an absolute but purely a matter of practicality. An example of an exception to this would be the fairly rare case of a preclear who gets a moderate drop on squeezing the cans and a huge drop on all the items you ask him to think about, to an unreadable degree. You would then cut the sensitivity down a notch.

If your preclear gets NO drop on squeezing the cans, don't assume that your meter has gone to the boneyard, that's what your preclear has probably done. Just set the sensitivity at 12 o'clock and see how he is reading on things. You will have to find the preclear before you can get the sensitivity setting. You might find that he reads pretty well anyway even though not getting a can- squeeze drop.

I have seen a preclear actually crumple a pair of Campbell's cans and still no needle reaction.

How to Get the Preclear Readable

Normally a preclear just is readily obtainable on an E meter. Occasionally he isn't.

When a preclear is readily read his various needle reactions can be compared and understood easily.

To get the preclear's standard needle action is necessary in order to be able to compare other than standard reactions to it. What is the size of his drop, what is his standard comm-lag, what repeating pattern does he perform on the meter? These things should be known before going ahead with E meter auditing of any kind.

The most important thing is that the auditor must know he is reading the preclear, not just a body, a TV set or a loose wire.

In order to know that he is getting the preclear on the meter it must be observable to the auditor that what the meter is doing is resulting from what the auditor is telling the preclear to do. This can be done in any of several ways, the handiest being the "lie reaction".

"Lie" Reaction

Keeping in mind that this is an assessment of the preclear's needle characteristic and not a process we will not at this point try to say too much about whether the "lie reaction" is actually a lie reaction or not, or about, for that matter, whether a lie detector is a lie detector or not. What we want to know at this point is: (1) is the preclear producing needle reaction and not just sitting there and having the meter patterns occur; (2) how MUCH of a reaction, in terms of sensitivity.

(1) Either way you immediately know quite a lot about the preclear: if he produces reactions to whatever you ask or direct his attention to, then you know that he has some available willingness to confront mental image pictures, and you know several other things about him as a preclear. Most important is that you've got him personally registering on the meter.

(2) When you know how big his standard drop is on the dial you have a basis for scouting items such as present time problem, selected persons, erroneous terminals on the Dynamics, etc.

This should be done in a matter of from one to five minutes:

(A) You can tell the preclear to answer "NO" to whatever question you ask him; then ask such questions as: "Do those feet have shoes in them?" (pointing), "Are there any chairs in this room?", "Is this building in (name of city)?", "Are there some cans in those hands?", "Is there a rug on that floor?". Any question of this sort.

(B) Tell him to lie to you when you ask him such questions as: "Did you come to the office in a Rolls Royce today?", "Where were you married?", "Who is the Vice President of the United States?", "To whom have you told a lie?", "How much papaya juice did you have for breakfast this morning?". Etc., etc.

(C) Or you can ask him if there is something he mustn't tell you or mustn't ever tell anyone.

(D) Or you can use the standard lie detector routine: lean forward and touch the preclear on the back of the neck, keeping your eye on the meter, and ask, "Have you ever been kissed there?"

(E) Or you can pinch the preclear's arm and then have him recall the pinch.

(F) Or you can have the preclear put down one of the cans and pinch your arm and then with the preclear holding the cans again have him recall pinching you.

These last are used of course only if the routine lie reaction test does not give you a reading.

What the E meter Measures

The E meter passes a tiny electrical current across between the hands of the preclear. This current meets with various degrees of electrical resistance in the body. Electrical resistance is stated in OHMS. It cannot be stated that a human body has a certain standard ohms resistance -- on the contrary it varies from person to person and from moment to moment, and can be MADE to vary, and furthermore NORMALLY varies within a certain range.

The ohms resistance of the moment and the subsequent changes of ohms resistance in the preclear are what gives us our reading.

What we are reading, or measuring, is specifically the impingement of the individual himself (the spirit) upon the body by the direct action of thought. It is to be emphasized that this does not mean the BRAIN.

What do we mean by "the direct action of thought"? We certainly do not mean that the individual is at all times aware of what he is doing to the body. He isn't and he hasn't been and he isn't vaguely going to be until he is CLEAR. He is going to suspect himself before clear, he is going to actually catch himself at it after he has reached the level of RELEASE. We mean that thought is direct and that thought is produced only by the spirit, and that in the aberrated individual (one who lives by mental image pictures seen or unseen, reactively) it just happens that whatever thought he thinks, he accompanies by the automatic production of mental image pictures. Mental image pictures impinge upon the body. Thetans are quite obsessive about this.

As a result of this impingement the ohms resistance in the body ALWAYS registers in one of several ways. These are: (1) the DROP in resistance, (2) the RISE in resistance, (3) the sudden STICKING of resistance, and (4) the PATTERN, wherein the resistance goes through repeated series of the above three.

Thus we could say simply that the E meter measures what and how much the spirit is doing to the body.

It is therefore a precision aid to CLEARING.

What an Auditor Uses an E meter For

There is nothing that the E meter tells the auditor that the preclear couldn't EVENTUALLY tell him himself.

The auditor uses an E meter to find out what he wants to know WHEN he wants to know it. And he wants to know it IMMEDIATELY.

Let's take an example from "Step Six", the basic mockup process. The auditor has the preclear mock up a white cube. He then tells him to make it a little more solid. The preclear says he does, the E meter says he doesn't. There is a peculiar needle action for this called the "solid reaction". The preclear didn't get it. What does the auditor do at this point?

He continues the process, using the same commands, until he GETS the solid reaction.

What does he do WITHOUT an E meter? Aside from the fact that he wouldn't be running Step Six without an E meter he would run a few commands, wonder when to stop, stop and then wonder whether he should have run it some more. And that h'ain't auditing.

Now, shouldn't the preclear have been able to tell him that he didn't really make the mockup more solid? He KNOWS he didn't. The trouble is he doesn't know he knows it. He's not too sure what is truth and what is knowing and what is being convincing and what is being certain.

Because he is doing a SIMPLE process. And preclears don't think or communicate in simplicities. A clear does that. So that someday when he is clear he could tell the auditor, "Remember back there where I ran that half hour of Step Six for you? Well, I didn't do those commands. I was just painting that cube black when you told me to make it a little more solid." Well, you say, "why didn't you tell me?" "Because I kept getting a tearing sensation in my left leg every time I thought of telling you."

Now, with the E meter he STILL wouldn't have told you, but you would have continued the process until he WAS doing it, and concurrently the somatic that had turned on in his leg would have vanished.

With a few experiences of this sort you begin to get the idea of things like the auditor's code and the handiness of the trusty meter.

Try to learn as many of these things as you can WITHOUT the experience; but if you don't, then you'll get the experience. The opportunities are plentiful.

What an E meter Auditor Needs to Know About Electronics

He needs to know very little about tubes and transistors and printed circuits and gadgetry. On the other hand he needs to know 100% more about the basics of electronics than is required of a Bell Lab engineer or rocket expert. Why should this be? It would seem that such qualifications would be far afield of the job of an auditor. Perhaps we should say that while for rockets the expert would have to know considerable of basics and phenomena; that for Theta Clearing the auditor has to know basic-basics. The difference is this: that for rockets and refrigerators, the relation between electronics and the production of thought is not considered necessary, and that for clearing, the auditor must know all. He must know the material in Scientology 8-80 by L. Ron Hubbard.

Today the notion is a fairly popular one that all thought IS electronic. In Dianetics and Scientology we have known for a very long time just how convincing a case could be made for this. We know how neatly it follows the collectivist psychology line. We know the selling history of this story. We know the history of Facsimile One, and of electronic implants all over the time track.

In other words, we know why it is a lie and we know how much could happen to a mankind that bought it. If you think that Man is playing too hard with H bombs and such, you might be overlooking the bigger threat of a thinking-machine civilization, non-fiction.

But an E meter auditor doesn't have to know complexities of electronics. He DOES have to know the difference between theta and mest and the basic characteristics of both. He has to know that whatever phenomena he observes in the preclear are being put there by the preclear.

The preclear: theta. The phenomena: mest.

(See: Scientology 8-80; History of Man; Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought -- all by L. Ron Hubbard.)

Chapter IV: Needle Action

We will now describe needle actions.

The Drop (or Fall or Surge)

A needle drop is always a movement to the right. The size of a drop is spoken of in terms of DIALS or in terms of TONE ARM readings or in comparison to other needle behavior of the same preclear. (A big drop for one might be a small drop for another, depending on what is normal action for the preclear.)

A "two-dial drop" would be one in which the needle goes a full dial to the right and when quickly brought into sight again is seen to continue to fall for another full dial. This is not an exact way of expressing needle action, except when the action is less than a dial. "Half a dial" is a very exact expression. It is still, however, subject to your sensitivity setting.

TONE ARM changes are uniformly exact, regardless of sensitivity.

A needle drop is an indication by the meter that a lowering of ohms resistance between the cans (and the preclear is between the cans) has occurred. In an auditing session or an assessment the drop is a result of the preclear's contacting the item to which the auditor has directed his attention or an item which he automatically contacts as a result of the item to which the auditor has directed his attention.

The common denominators of things which done or contacted will produce a needle drop are:

• Loss
• Lies
• Present time problems
• Locks
• Disagreement with a reality
• "Solid reaction"
• Mass
• Newly confronted material
• Overt act newly viewed
• Motivator contacted but not fully viewed
• Somatic (pain or other sensation impinged reactively on body)
• As-is-ness (partial)
• Association
• Release of "charge"
• Yawns
• Deep breathing (if metabolism normally active)
• Laughter

This may seem a formidable number of things to keep track of, and it must be kept in mind that other things can produce the various needle actions, but we are listing the tested items. These things are not disrelated, and are actually not difficult to relate to what your preclear is doing.

A drop can be anything from one sixteenth of an inch to the complete range of the instrument. If it goes to the right it is a drop and if it is big enough to go out of sight on the right you move the tone arm LEFT to bring it back into sight.

A drop tells you that the preclear has hit something with "charge" on it. A charged item.

Every needle action mentioned in this manual which is a reaction represents CHARGE. The only needle action that is NOT a reaction is the FREE NEEDLE -- to be covered later in the manual.

The DROP also varies as to speed. In terms of release of charge, the fast drop can be likened to an explosion -- it BLOWS. The slow drop can be likened to a FLOW -- a continuing release of charge resulting from continued viewing or contacting of a charged item.

When you see a drop on the meter you know two things: that there was not-is-ness of the thing contacted; that the preclear discharged part of the not-is-ness.

Thus the rule that something which gets a drop can be run (preclear able to partially confront it) and something which "should" get a drop and doesn't can't be run now (not sufficiently real to the preclear).

This is especially applicable to the present time problem. If it drops, run it; if not, not.

The rising needle

Rising needle is to the left. The rising needle reports the following to the auditor:

• Non-confront
• ARC break
• Overt act contacted and being not-ised
• Unreality to preclear of subject being addressed
• Out of sessionness
• Fear
• Irresponsibility
• Identification
• Elsewhereness
• Other-determined connectedness
• Dispersal
• Substitution
• Invalidation
• Addition (vias)

A very FAST rise of some length indicates a sudden elsewhereness. This can result from contacting something "too" hot -- anywhere on the time track; it can result from an ARC break caused by a real or imagined auditor error or auditor's code break. Whether real or imagined it has to be handled.

Anything of this sort which produces a rising needle contains not only a possible ARC break by the auditor, but also an overt act, real or imagined, on the part of the preclear toward the auditor. This is of course handled promptly.

The rising needle is of tremendous importance in scouting the preclear's track. More will be given on this subject under "track scout" in the manual.

The High Tone Arm

A tone arm reading above 3 or 3.5 is above Clear range, but not spectacularly high. A tone arm reading from 4 to 5 is high.

Above 5 the reading in ohms takes us into the range of hundreds of thousands and actually up into millions of ohms resistance. And this is as compared with the normal male reading (3) of 12,000 ohms and the normal female reading (2) of 5,000 ohms.

Now the meter had to RISE to get there. Thus the characteristics of a rising needle can be applied to the high reading.

At that high range you can still get the other needle reactions. You will NOT see a free needle there. You might see a momentary free-looking needle there, but seldom. More commonly you will see a sluggish, a slow rising or a stuck needle at that level.

There is a tremendous unreality and not-is-ness involved in the very high reading. There you find the not-is-ness called the "sweetness-and-light" case.

Overt acts done by the preclear, great numbers of them, are in restimulation here, and all jammed together and hopefully occluded.

So that: although one could easily find the characteristics of the high needle uncomplimentary, it is to be remembered that it represents OVERT ACTS and that overt acts are MORE BASIC THAN AND PRECEDE "MOTIVATORS". (See your Axioms, and in particular #10.) As of Spring, 1959, research passed the point where the high reading was any great problem to the auditor. As of Summer, 1959, from the introduction of Formula 10, L. Ron Hubbard moved things up to the point where we could make actual USE of the rising needle and where it was giving us very practical information.

The Stuck Needle

The STUCK NEEDLE is of course the needle reaction which is an immediate stoppage of needle ACTION and is in itself a basic meter REaction.

The thing which brings about a stuck needle is stuckness. In other words when the preclear sticks the needle sticks. Any stuckness of thought, emotion, effort, attention, affinity, reality, communication, beingness or havingness will in turn stop the needle.

It can stay stopped momentarily or for hours and days.

Always remember that the stuck needle is a reaction, not a needle gone out of action.

IMPORTANT: When did the needle stick? If you were scouting some piece of track and you didn't notice the exact moment when the needle started sticking, you have been a naughty fellow or girl, and if the needle starts moving again in normal fashion you are also very lucky.

You always take note of what you were asking the preclear about which then stuck the needle. Find out what terminal (person or thing) he put his attention on at that moment. That's an item, and you have to go after it when it happens, not in retrospect.

Now it happens occasionally that a stuck needle is the characteristic reaction of your preclear, and therefore he has a stuck needle from the first time you put him on the cans.

Or, he has just come back from lunch with a stuck needle.

In other words it happened outside of your auditing of that preclear.

What do you do about that? You start tracking it down and try to find out what the item was that stuck the needle, and you try to see if you can UN-stick it, and stick it again at will, on the same item.

How do you track this down: first you try to find out whether his attention is fixed on something, and on what (or who).

(If he is stuck he is fixed onto a RIDGE. So that Scientology 8-80 can tell you a great deal about the actual mechanics of this.)

Or you scout for an ARC break, in general, and in specific, with you.

There are a good many ways of going after this, and probably this manual would not be the proper place to list them, but rather in a procedures manual. However, the following are most of the known characteristics and things which can produce a stuck reaction:

Betrayal
Anger
Stopped or stopping
Hate
Fixed attention
Failed help
Refused help
A ridge
"The Rock"
Failed People Pleasers
Consumers (i.e.: Energy consumer)
Failed consumer
Valence
Overwhelmed
Terror
Failure

By scouting various forms of the above items one can ordinarily unstick a needle.

This is not done because a stuck needle is bad and to be avoided, but so that it is not sticking with unknown cause. The auditor should be able to make the needle stick, but it is not useful to have it PRE-stuck somewhere and sometime out of session.

A stuck needle can occur anywhere on the Range scale (any tone arm setting).

When the needle is stuck at a high tone arm setting, remember that the stick is on the top of a climbing needle, and that therefore there is an ARC break holding the preclear's attention. AND: it contains a real-or-imagined overt act on the part of the preclear toward the auditor, and the preclear thinks it is a motivator (what the auditor did to him) rather than an overt.

This always goes back to earlier overt-motivator sequences.

This is not to say that a preclear is usually wrong, but that it is usually the preclear's own acts that fix his attention, rather than another's actions upon him. This is tested fact.

Religious shame-blame-regret ceremonies are a lower harmonic mockery of this.

The Sticky Needle

The "sticky needle" is any needle action where there is a squashing of meter movement, a tendency toward sticking, a sluggishness of motion with sticks not quite persistent enough to call stuck.

It usually occurs in conjunction with a tendency to rise or with a high needle.

A dropping needle is usually freeing rather than getting sticky.

The "Theta Bop"

There is no escaping the term theta bop, as that is what auditors called it the first time they saw it and have never called it anything else since.

The common denominators of theta bop phenomena are:

Exteriorization -- disoriented.

That is the whole list.

It might not even be compulsive exteriorization, but there is always the element of disorientedness to sufficient degree to make the thetan want to hunt around for some anchor points.

Exteriorization is the assumption of location outside of what one was inside.

Exteriorization is a characteristic or trait of the THETA CLEAR. It is also the central point of an ENGRAM. There are, then, two very different situations coming under the above definition.

The THETA CLEAR assumes locations at will, self-determinedly.

The exteriorization which is always found in an ENGRAM is COMPULSIVE and other-determined. It is a "theta flinch".

An engram in restimulation is always an exteriorization in restimulation.

Clearing a thetan is putting a preclear progressively AT CAUSE over location (beingness) as well as over doingness and havingness.

THE THETA BOP is a series of needle swings to the right and left at the ends of which there is a quivering, or hunting, action. This action can have wide or narrow swings (from several dials down to less than an inch), either fast or slow, and the hunting action can be as little as one "tick" at each end of the dial sweep.

The theta bop indicates just one thing -- that an exteriorization has taken place. A PAST exteriorization has been contacted and restimulated. The preclear is reacting because he has just knowingly exteriorized and "keyed in", or has just gotten keyed in and has unknowingly exteriorized. In either case you get the theta bop.

A yo-yoing (in and out of the head sporadically) and a bunk (thetan taking off and leaving the body a heap on the chair) will either one of them produce a theta bop.

A completely oriented thetan exterior would of course not get a theta bop reaction. Below THETA CLEAR, he would.

In general the incidents which produce a theta bop are PAST DEATHS. You will also find them on this-life track in such things as violent injuries, shocks, operations (surgical) and quite possibly in moments when the preclear has craved elsewhereness to an emergency-level degree.

You can also find something called the "little theta bop" by having the preclear put his attention into a BODY PART which he has withdrawn from at some time such as when that part was injured, or perhaps when he injured a corresponding body part of another's (overt-motivator sequence). The "little theta bop" is of course not to be confused with the little theta bop which might look exactly the same but which is a past death or other compulsive exteriorizations. In using the term "little" in the special sense, one always mentions also what it was (the body part) that brought on the needle action.

In the part of this manual which takes up the Track Scout will be mentioned the fact that whether you get a theta bop on an incident depends upon whether the exteriorization part of the incident is the part of the incident which is in restimulation, or which the preclear is holding to. Thus it is seen that any heavy incident contains all the needle reactions and you can contact them all.

Mock-up Needle Actions

A mock-up is a mental image picture, created by the individual in present time. It has mass, energy, space, location and time. It has only these things as put there BY THE INDIVIDUAL. There is no other agent.

A preclear will ordinarily not think of his mockups as having any mass until he has worked at his own level of acceptable effect. In other words he has agreed that a great deal of what he is creating he is not creating.

The prototypical mockup process is Step Six of Mest Clear Procedures. It is to be noted here that because we are listing certain needle actions as mockup actions does not mean that all needle reactions are not mockup reactions. They are. They register the impingement of mass (pictures) by the spirit (the individual) upon the body.

A mockup does not have to occupy the same space as the body in order to register on the meter. It is still an impingement as long as the thetan says so or has so agreed.

Four things are done with mockups in Step Six: (1) Mock it up. (2) Keep it from going away. (3) Hold it still. (4) Make it a little more solid.

"Null to Null"

An object is selected by the auditor which the preclear can think of and be asked about without getting a significant needle action (needle reaction of any kind). This is called a NULL object. He then is told to mock up, for example, "a cube" in front of, behind, to the right, to the left, above and below the body in successive commands. Although the object was null it will begin to produce a needle reaction as he mocks it up. (Consult the characteristics of the four basic needle actions.)

The reaction usually encountered is the drop.

The object is run until it ceases to produce a needle reaction. That is "null to null".

"Keep It From Going Away"

Along with the command to mock up the item there is in Step Six a second command and there are three of these second commands: "Keep it from going away" is the first. So that the full command would be, for example: "In front of that body you mock up a cube and keep it from going away."

The preclear is given these commands all six ways repeatedly until there is no significant needle action either on mocking up the object or on keeping it from going away.

If the preclear keeps the mockup from going away even for an instant he has done the command.

"Hold It Still"

This is an extremely fascinating phenomenon. After running "Keep it from going away" flat on a series of objects the second command becomes ".... and hold it still".

When the preclear does this the needle holds still.

He might do this from the very first command. He might get every other needle action in the book before he actually gets around to actually doing the command.

The command is run as in (1) until the reaction disappears from his mocking up the object, and until on the same mockup he gets the Hold It Still reaction.

This can be for a slightest instant, and it might be for a couple of seconds. The average hold-it-still reaction would probably be about 1-1/2 to 2 seconds.

"Make It a Little More Solid"

The third of these "second commands" in Step Six, done on exactly the same set of objects as done with Keep it from going away and Hold it still, is one that you should be able to extrapolate from the characteristics of needle actions given under the "Drop".

When the preclear makes the mockup a little more solid the needle drops anywhere from one sixteenth to one or more inches.

It might, in fact, when it first begins to appear, appear as nothing more than a little tick of the needle an indefinable distance to the right.

This is of course run until there is no reaction on making the mockup and a drop on the making it more solid.

Why These Reactions Occur

There is a matter of datum of comparable magnitude here. A Mest Clear will get the above needle actions, when nothing else under the galaxy would interrupt the looseness of his free needle.

These mockup process needle actions do not indicate charge.

The thing here to be noted is intention. When you tell a preclear to mock something up TO THE RIGHT OF THAT BODY you have told him to make a particle of comparable magnitude which is in the same time-space continuum as that body. The two are not detached but are related. Thus while trying to push the old buttons in the preclear's (now Clear's) "case" you get nothing, you get these specific reactions when you get him to do something in present time and with intention.

The difference here is that he is KNOWINGLY and AT CAUSE impinging mass on the body. Not reactively.

The Free Needle

The free needle is: needle action but not REaction. It has no reaction pattern as does, for instance, the "stage four", rise, stick, fall, rise, stick, fall needle.

It means "no significant needle action".

It "flops" or "floats". It is easily recognized by the auditor after he has seen it in a few preclears.

The free needle is encountered anywhere in processing where the charge has been taken out of something, where the preclear has been put at cause toward something, has gotten it out of restimulation, has balanced out the flows on it.

A free needle tells you that you don't have to do anything further about the item being run or scouted.

Example: you scout the preclear and find he has a tremendous stuck needle on grandma that is bedded in concrete and that to make things worse everything is just lovely concerning grandma and it would be a waste of time to run it. You decide to get drastic and run a thirteen way bracket on the old lady and it goes beautifully. There is a nice sort of dignity about the way this preclear talks about his favorite relative. Here is the kind of familial tie that the editors of McCall's would glow at. But here is also the stuckest "5-1/2" needle you've ever seen. So you think, this must be an exception -- a stuck needle but with the preclear obviously in good ARC with the terminal, no comm-lags, no dope-off, everything fine. You didn't change the process even so, not because of the Code, but because you were just lucky. It was ten minutes to end of session and you didn't want to start anything new so you just kept running it, and what did pc do?

He all of a sudden winds up and lets fling of the fact that old grandma was a life ruiner from way back. She almost killed him in a fit of irritation when he was three weeks old. She was the world's worst baby-sitter and a snuff- dipper to boot.

Wonder why the needle is rising like that, you say to yourself, it's been stuck tight all morning, and anyway, isn't 5-1/2 enough? He has to go higher?

Overt act contacted but not looked at by pc. That's why it's rising. He's talking motivators and hitting very close to the overt against this terminal.

"Well," he says, "I could help her by... by... by... -- you asked me how I could help my grandma, didn't you?" Yes, you repeat the command.

"Well, I could help her by.....burning down the chicken coop. Yup. I could help the old dame by burning up her chicken coop, the one nearest the barn. Yes sir."

The needle is still rising, but with little catches and hesitations.

"As a matter of fact that's just what I did," he says. "That was in 1915, the day after Christmas. Well, well -- so this is visio!"

Tone arm drops to 3 and needle frees. Now you can end session and go get some lunch. And the preclear can go to lunch and eat something besides milk toast and jello. Like grandma always ate.

He may or may not notice this.

But you have seen a good demonstration of the moralism: if you use an E meter, use the data it gives you.

The Slamming Needle

Occasionally you will see the slamming needle and wonder if your wiring is loose. Perhaps it is. Check the wire leads, which are most prone to breaking after a year's hard use (winding them around the cans, etc.). Get new wires or mend the old.

But it might not be your wiring.

A slamming needle is one which slams and bangs back and forth rather violently and surgingly and should not alarm you.

It indicates that your pc is very, very close on the Rock, and that he is doing a rapid must look-must not look, which when hit this directly does not stick the needle immediately but slams it.

Continue the process. If this is encountered in a scout, take the item that produced it and run it. It's good.

The Fixed Pattern

A fixed needle pattern is a closely repeated series of rises, sticks and falls in any combination, very repetitive. Turns into a stuck needle ordinarily when process is continued, and then of course runs through a normal processing meter action.

The fixed pattern preclear is reactively retracing an old incident. He has a lot of attention busily out of present time. He is not viewing the incident, however -- just going around in the groove.

Chapter V: The Track Scout

There are two kinds of track scout: first, the general research "What to Audit" kind of track scout which is L. Ron Hubbard's surpassing specialty, and in which nobody has done (or now needs to do) anything comparable; the second type of trackdown is the only one used in auditing. In auditing the auditor always has something very definite that he wants to find and pin down -- usually to get a terminal that can be run and that should be run to advance the case.

We can always get better and better at this one. Yesterday's cleverness is tomorrow's crudeness as far as track spotting with an E meter is concerned. You'll find that the simpler and more direct you get the really cleverer you are. Every auditor gets his preferences as to tracking patter. One likes to ask about mysterious deeds, another killings, still another, sex and eating. Have you breakfasted upon southern fried varmints? -- or, When did you blow up that font?

It doesn't actually matter how you get the item you are after, as long as you ARE after something, you know what you are after, and you get it FROM THE PRECLEAR (not from Uncle Freemantle who knew him from a tyke). Now you will always be chided with being unscientific for knowing what you are after and getting it. The scientific method is not to know what you are after and then to find something else entirely. Please do not be scientific when you audit. Be effective. The only place you will find answers is there in the preclear.

There are different types of things to go for:

One of these is The Rock. The "Rock" is the principle aberrative object, very early, for which the preclear was originally totally responsible (it's not the only thing he was originally responsible for), which he created (not just "made" from picked up materials), which he used to please others with, which he became addicted to as a via (indirect way of doing things), and which he decided was better than (senior to) him, about which he had the major ARC break of his career, and which he has thoroughly occluded and which he has never ceased unknowingly mocking up for more than moments since, out of a possible 70 or more trillion years.

In other words, a very tough cookie. You don't scout this one by reading the preclear the above description and then asking him, "Well, what is it?" That is essentially what you do, but you do it by getting the information from the preclear not by lecturing it to him.

(From HCO BULLETINS of July and August, 1958 -- L. Ron Hubbard to Hubbard Guidance Center Auditors:)

The basic locating question of the Rock (primary aberrative object) is: "What is a people pleaser?"

The Rock is a Reach-Withdraw mechanism, and the phenomenon of a stuck needle is the ridge so created.

The Rock is: that which a person has used to reach people or things with and is determined in value by its creativeness or destructiveness. It is simply the reach-withdraw mechanism which makes a ridge and this causes the stuck of the needle.

The Rock is an OBJECT -- it is NOT a significance. And you scout by what the pc shies away from as well as what he sticks on -- and a theta bop always winds up in a stuck needle if pursued in a scout.

CYCLE OF THE ROCK (object): A person (1) failed to communicate himself; (2) started using something to communicate with; (3) put it on automatic; (4) it created for him; (5) it failed.

The Rock itself, when first located, will be a solution to many earlier cycles as described above. And so, a Rock is peeled off cycle by cycle.

The rule is to find the last cycle that is real enough to the preclear to stick a needle and this is true of locating and running any lock of the Rock.

Be careful during a scout not to choose an object which makes the needle rise slowly, as this is an addition (see Rising Needle) to the Rock which is being done gratuitously by the preclear. (This factor is an indicator but it must not be run.) The rock stick does not rise -- it just sticks.

Thus the rock is an example of the type of item sought in a track scout. Whenever the needle sticks you know you have, by the way, contacted something sufficiently restimulative of the rock chain to get meter registry. The above quotes from L. Ron Hubbard's technical bulletins to the Hubbard Guidance Center Auditors is in no way meant to qualify anyone for running the Rock on any preclear. It is simply E meter information.

Scouting Times

Pinning down the time factor in any incident is of tremendous importance.

Time is the single arbitrary.

The preclear has everything filed as to WHEN.

He has things filed in other ways -- the bank is a great crossindexer. But primarily he has it pegged in time.

Why? Because, aberrated, that's how he makes time. He doesn't know he makes time; he thinks time is one thing you can depend on utterly to be made by an elsewhere agency.

He has lied about time more than about any other thing. And we don't care so much, although he does, whether he has lied to others. The worst of it is that he has lied to himself about the whens.

But when you pull the tab on this thing called when, you pull off also the subsequent material.

You know from DIANETICS: The Modern Science of Mental Health that the rule of "Go earlier" applies in the case of engrams, and that in doing so you pulled off the subsequent material in the form of secondaries and locks.

The preclear who advanced fastest in Dianetic processing was getting the best time sense in what he was dealing with. This could have been speeded further in more preclears even without the E meter with the use of flash answers on "when". But the exactitude of time-spotting came a bit later, and when it did it developed into the subject called Scientology.

But with an E meter you can do dazzling things with the time element. You can spot things to all the exactitude of which can be conceived. Let's take as an example a process called "Recall an ARC Break". We are not interested in the process as such, here, but it should be added that this is a process that probably should not be run anywhere outside the Hubbard Guidance Center, and it should never be run imperfectly.

There are many processes which are in themselves track scouts and they are called straight wire processes. This one is called ARC Break Straight Wire.

The preclear recalls an ARC break. (He has to know something about Scientology to answer this command -- the only process of which this is the case.) He says, "The matron wiped her hands after using my fountain pen."

Now, what do you say? You don't say, "Why?" You don't say, "Tell me more about this fascinating engram." You keep your needle set and your meter well in sight and you say, "When?"

Preclear says, "1888, summer."

But did they have fountain pens in 1888, you start wondering. When did they invent the dratted things? And did the matron get ink on her fingers, or what? Wonder what the ARC break was? But 1888. That just doesn't seem quite kosher.

Well, as a matter of fact you question not in the slightest whether or not there were these pens in the late 19th century.

What concerns you is this: (1) is the preclear satisfied with the date? (2) as you go along in the process are you satisfied with the way your preclear's time sense is picking up? (3) you take note of whether the needle flicked over a bit to the right when he spotted that date.

And you say: "Thank you." And keep shooting the commands and getting the times.

Now suppose (1) and (2) are satisfied, but no needle action. This indicates that he isn't yet sharpshooting the time element. It doesn't happen for long. You accept his answers and you say thank you with good TR 2.

But now we come beyond the point where you are just keeping your eye on the meter and getting his general reaction on the process.

He runs into an incident that he can just give you the sketchiest notion of, or, one that he can describe right down to the cat's whisker, but that he can't locate in time.

He says, "A guy in a helmet waved me over to a side door in the wall."

You say, "When?" He says, "Can't spot it."

Here's where you use the meter.

Spotting times is done by DATE AND HOUR, not by "how long ago".

Spotting times is done by "WAS IT BETWEEN (GIVING TWO DATES)?", not by, "was it before (given date)?".

It is done by "WAS IT LESS THAN (5000, etc.) B.C.?", or, "WAS IT MORE THAN (1000, etc.) A.D.?", or, "WAS IT MORE RECENT THAN (YEAR A.D. OR B.C.)?".

You have to keep your questions under good control, because, for example, if you have an incident roughly spotted somewhere around 1705 and you want to know whether it was 1704 or 1706, and if you ask, was it before 1705 you open up the WHOLE track ALL the way back to ANY incident which might be associative to your incident. So you are going to throw the preclear way off into a chain of events which he already has GROUPED in time, and which you are trying to select OUT of, not group into.

So: don't ask "was it before...?"

Do not ask, "Was it before or after 1705?" That is not only bad from the above standpoint, but unanswerable besides. It is not a yes or no question.

Use YES or NO questions, OR, flash answers ("file clerk").

But flash answers are not an E meter method.

Now, HOW DO YOU GET YOUR ANSWERS? Don't confuse the verbal answer given by the preclear with the E meter answer. When you are scouting down a date and hour by meter it is not even important whether the preclear answers verbally or not, it is more important that he hear the questions, but that is less important than the fact that he is holding the cans.

Because you are getting your answers right straight out of the record via the E meter.

Remember: you accepted his verbal answers no matter what he gave you. But now he has hit one about which he hasn't the faintest. He is asking you to help him spot it. So you ignore largely his yesses, guesses and no's.

When you start to get the preclear spotting times on the meter his time sense picks up to where he starts having some very, very definite opinions about WHEN. And you start accepting them and then lay the meter aside again. If he's got some definite opinions about it he is getting some time sense. Do you care whether he has the "right dates" -- you do not.

Anyway, who's going to say what's a right date? The whole thing called time is a big fat arbitrary isn't it, and don't you let the HASI catch you worshipping the grandeur of Time.

You are not spotting these times to get the preclear into obedience to the track, but to pull him out of it.

But what are these answers the E meter supplies? In time-spotting the answers are largely the DROP. Call it a lie reaction, a solid reaction, an emotional charge, a trauma or whatever you like, the DROP means YES. It ALWAYS means YES.

It means that the item is within the area you put in your question.

The area can be as wide as trillions of years, and you still get your answer. Then: as you narrow down your area with your yes-or-no questions it will start to take closer and closer shots to flick the needle over.

It will narrow down in tolerances from trillions of years to month, day, hour, minute and FRACTION OF A SECOND. It will actually get down to that, and you have to name the exact fraction of a second or the needle says nothing, and when you do name the correct fraction, the needle will drop a good dial.

This is not to say that down-to-the-second is a rule in spotting times.

The rule is: you and/or the preclear are satisfied.

The preclear is sometimes very keen about where he feels he has it spotted, and sometimes he couldn't care less.

The auditor is satisfied (1) when the preclear is satisfied, or, (2) when he gets a good snap of the needle and when the thing seems to be pegged down well enough never to create future confusion. In either case ORDER has been put into the bank. Thus the preclear becomes more able to REACH bank material.

When a time-spot is done on the meter, the auditor TELLS the preclear what date got the yes on the meter. He doesn't say, "That's when it happened." He does say: "The meter says that's the one," or something to that effect.

The different needle actions encountered: drop, rise, stick, theta bop -- all of these can be found in any heavy incident. Which the needle is doing depends on which part of the incident the preclear is in contact with. This includes the Rock incident.

Time Spotting a Restimulation

Preclear has gotten himself a headache during lunch hour, comes back and says you have wrecked him.

Put him on the meter and ask him when he first noticed the feeling. Spot it down to the exact moment if necessary, or down to where the feeling turns off. Don't two-way-comm it beyond there. Put him right back to work on clearing.

This is also a good general assist, aside from formal processing.

But DON'T go chasing after the "CAUSE" of the incident. JUST get the moment when this present-time condition turned on. Get it precise enough to turn it off and then go about your business and send the person on his way. Don't do an intensive on it, don't do a whole track scout.

The Use of the Rising Needle in Selecting Terminals

When you are doing an assessment of the preclear in order to select a terminal (person or thing) to be run on a process such as Overt-Withhold Straight Wire or a communication process, or in selecting terminals out of an engram to be run, the rising needle is of special importance:

First you have the fact that significant needle action on any terminal indicates that it is worth running. Second is the fact that the rising needle tells you that an overt act has been contacted. It has been mentioned that the overt act is more basic than what has been done to the preclear. An overt act is an act against another which the preclear considered harmful, and which the preclear decided the person didn't deserve and which he thinks he should not have done.

That is the thing you are after, and the rising needle spots it for you.

This is not to say that the preclear knows all this. He actually does know, but he reasons it to himself and to you otherwise. It is well buried.

Chapter VI: Terminal Assessment

A terminal is anything which has mass and location and can be communicated to.

Terminals are found on all dynamics. They are called terminals because they can be communicated with and because they can be either objects or people or other life forms, thus requiring a broad term.

In assessing a preclear for the terminal to be addressed in processing it is just as likely to be an object as it is to be a person.

Auditing varies according to the accuracy of the assessment as much as by any other factor.

Terminal assessment includes reality level.

The E meter is used in selecting terminals because it registers reactions and types of reactions as well as absence of reaction. It therefore also registers change of reaction.

Change of reaction, what kind and how much, determines terminal selection.

An item can be charged without being real enough to a preclear to cause a significant change in meter pattern.

When an item gives a change of meter pattern, it is real enough to the preclear to be addressed by him in processing.

THE ITEM GIVING THE GREATEST CHANGE (BIGGEST DROPS, FASTEST RISES, TIGHTEST STICKS, ETC.) IS THE ITEM TO BE RUN AND IS THE MOST REAL IN TERMS OF USEFULNESS IN PROCESSING.

It will produce the greatest change in the preclear for the amount of time invested.

It will flatten best.

Conditions are not terminals. A condition (or other concept or significance) can give an auditor clues into the terminal, but not the terminal.

Example: The preclear turns on a theta bop by talking about "lack of persistence" (a condition). If the theta bop disappeared when the terminal was then sought, and then reappeared at the mention of "left arms", then "a left arm" or "an arm" was the terminal to run.

If in searching for the terminal related to that condition we found four terminals which produced the same meter change as did "lack of persistence", we would then run the one of these four which produced the greatest change.

Or, in making the assessment we find that a large number of items drop on the dial, but two are found which produce a ragged rise. On checking further we find that one of these produces a bigger, faster and more consistent rise, and that is the item we choose.

(By "more consistent" here we mean that the auditor can direct the preclear to the item and then away from it and then back to it several times and still continue to get the reaction.)

Do not select terminals on the basis of what is likely, or what seems to make sense. Do not choose on the basis of what the preclear thinks is sensible or what he thinks should be run. (And don't ask the preclear what should be run and then turn around and run something else.)

The right terminal to run on a baseball player in the middle of a batting slump might very well turn out to be a baseball or a bat but it might also turn out to be a Klaxon horn. You could make a lot of symbolism out of why a Klaxon horn might represent batting troubles, perhaps, but the actual logic behind these buttons is reactive bank logic and your guesses are unnecessary.

There might be an engramic phrase kicking in which says, "You bust that pitcher and I'll throw you out fer good." This could make a nice little snarl-up for a ball-player. It tells him that if he gets a base hit off the pitcher he'll strike out, or something of the sort. Not very logical? Well, that's reactive bank logic.

The E meter is useful here because it cuts straight through the guesses and suppositions and gives you a measurable reading of the items which have been brought to the preclear's attention.

Now, the question of course comes up, how would an auditor ever think of asking about a Klaxon horn?

The fact is that a good auditor with plenty of experience will come up with these things, and he will do an assessment in ninety seconds that might take a student three days. But this should never be the goal of an auditor. Maybe it's fun to be flashy and right at the same time. It's utterly ridiculous to be flashy and wrong.

But it's just getting it right that counts.

The auditor ordinarily gets the "Klaxon horn" or other terminal simply by asking the preclear for it. There are thousands of questions and commands he could use to get this.

Other manuals and courses cover the possible ways of asking the questions. Here we are telling you what the answers look like.

Chapter VII: When the Process is Flat

In general a process is flat when any of these conditions is satisfied:

(1) Preclear's comm-lags have become very nearly equal for several commands
    (not less than three).
(2) The preclear gains or regains an ability.
(3) The preclear has a major cognition (a cognition which aligns the
    majority of the material addressed).

When any of these occurs to the auditor's satisfaction, the auditor can consider the process flat.

It does not depend, in (2) and (3), upon whether the ability or cognition seems logically relevant to the process.

If audited only on these criteria a preclear will eventually come to his clear reading on the E meter (2 for female, 3 for male) but only if many terminals are run flat and come back to and run again.

The Terminal

When you run a terminal which you have isolated in an E meter assessment you want the preclear cleared for that terminal.

Run it until the preclear is reading at his clear reading for his or her sex (3 or 2), with a free needle action. (Not the "clear reading" of the terminal being run.)

If you run a terminal contacted in an assessment and find that the needle action slows down with little change in its action, run it to a flat point on a comm-lag basis (#(1) above), do another assessment and run the terminal found. The first terminal may have to be run again after clearing the new one. At any rate it should be checked.

The rule of the flat or cleared terminal is an important one -- run it to the preclear's proper clear setting; get twenty answers without significant E meter change (without having to adjust the tone arm and with only a free needle action).

Then this preclear is a clear for that item and that much closer to clear on all items.

Chapter VIII: Q & A

• Can a preclear cover up needle action?
• Certainly -- but he can't cover up the needle action which indicates that he is covering up. Which brings us back to what a preclear is in the first place.

• Does the Tone Arm indicate where a person is on the Tone Scale?
• In the hands of an auditor it tells a lot -- but not like a thermometer, with up hot and down cold. One must take the total meter behavior of the preclear in comparison to the meter action to get this. High tone arm does not mean high tone. It doesn't mean low tone either. An auditor can spot tone by looking at the person anyway.

• When a male preclear reads at 2 or a female preclear reads at 3 does this indicate that the preclear is in an opposite sex valence?
• Yes.

• Should the undignified tin can be used for E meter electrodes in professional practice as well as student exercise?
• Yes, and they don't last very long, either. There is a very mild electrolytic action which takes place between the hands and its secretions and the surface of the cans. They get dark and stained. Chrome tubes and other better-than-cans items have been used. They give a non-standard reaction, which means not usable for auditing. If chrome, copper dish rags or Brillo pads had been used in the research and development of the instrument they would be the things to use now. But chrome is slow-acting, copper probably poisonous and Brillo soapy. Soup cans are good; some like the smaller juice can; the V-8 Juice can is used in Washington. Electronic hobbyists and graduates will suggest better conductors, in error. When the cans discolor, they are still OK. When they begin to discolor the preclear's hands, drink two cans of V-8 and you have your new electrodes.

• Who invented the E meter?
• It wasn't invented. It is a refinement of standard equipment. The present Hubbard Electrometer, which is the only instrument which can really be called today an E meter, was developed by L. Ron Hubbard and Don Breeding. The meter was actually built by Don, himself an auditor, and he did it working closely with Ron to make it an auditor's meter. Any electronics man can build a fancy meter; it took a couple of good auditors to make an E meter. Another auditor, Joe Wallace, smoothed out production and parts standardization. This is the first all-transistor, infinity-range, carefully produced, sensitive, uniform-performance battery operated E meter.

• Are you selling E meters?
• No. We (the Central Organizations of Scientology) buy them from the only authorized manufacturer.

• Do M.D.'s use E meters?
• What for?

• Can an old vintage psychometer be adapted for present day use in auditing? Or how about new off-brand jobs?
• Did you ever see one? They get standard needle actions without any preclear holding the cans, just by internal sputter. They use house current and tubes. They have extra and unnecessary range arms and still will not reach the high needle or low needle preclear. At this late date they are, with 110 v., probably dangerous.

• Do females read at 5,000 and males at 12,000 ohms because women have smaller hands and therefore less contact with the electrodes?
• No, some women have bigger hands than some men, and still read at 5,000 ohms when clear. Anyway LESS contact would make HIGHER resistance, so if that was the factor, women would when clear, read higher than men whose hands were larger.

• Is a man reading "3" or a woman reading "2" clear?
• Maybe.

• Which Academy course gives E meter training?
• H.C.A. (the first professional level course -- the Hubbard Certified Auditor course) and further training in the use of the E meter is given in the advanced course, the H.C.S. course (Hubbard Clearing Scientologist course).

• What other things can an E meter be used for besides auditing?
• Whatever it might be it would still have to be done by an auditor. He could take an E meter and with that and a preclear with fairly good visio, who wasn't scared by the trouble you can get into with facsimiles, and he could probably map the entirety of the Genetic line -- the entire track map of the body line and from the moment when it arrived on Earth until now. The Genetic Blueprint -- all the way along its line of evolution is a fascinating thing to follow. This is a large study that will someday be undertaken and it is within the present capability of quite a few auditors who are trained and validated through a few A.C.C.'s. Remember this is not auditing, however, and not clearing.

• How can the preclear spot things in time if the calendar we use now was not in existence back on the track?
• We don't know what the galactic year is, but the thetan quite evidently does, though he doesn't let himself know he knows about this.

• What was the earliest E meter?
• The very first E meter was made by Dick Saunders in Washington, D.C. in 1950. An H.D.A., Dick was interested in showing some psychiatrists and psychoanalysts that an engram existed. It was made from equipment that you would take off any laboratory bench, and it was crude. He would give the "preclear" two electrodes and then pinch the preclear brutally. The preclear would flinch and the flinch would register electronically on the crude old meter. He would then send the preclear back to the moment of the pinch and would get the pinch again without pinching him. The meter showed it. It really drove some of the psychoanalysts mad because they couldn't account for it.

• If an auditor was faced with a silent preclear, or one who just couldn't think of any answers, how would you do a track scout?
• No differently. You don't wait for answers anyway. When going for needle action the needle is your answer. Handling the preclear's verbal answers at that point is almost a matter of being interrupted in your scouting work. He could be scouted with 100% preclear silence. The drop means yes; the no needle change means no. You have to ask the right questions. Ron at one time researched this on a criminal who had committed a crime and who wasn't answering. He got the whole story right down to names of people -- by using the alphabet and getting drops on the letters.

• Would you ever run a Present Time Problem even if it didn't get a drop on the meter?
• If it doesn't get a drop it isn't a present time problem. If it gets some other needle reaction it might be something you would want to run but not as a P.T.P. For example: the preclear said he was terribly worried because "my mother left me this morning". You would think that this was really a big present time problem to the preclear and you decide to run it in spite of no needle reaction. No, don't touch it. You may think it would be reasonable that he would be worried and be severely problemed by this. It is your place to audit, not to be reasonable. You would be running your own case: i.e.: what you would consider a present time problem to you which would need to be handled.

• How do you think of questions to ask when scouting a preclear?
• This of course depends entirely upon what you are trying to find out from the preclear; however, there are some general rules or tips that you can follow in getting at the item. It is always a good rule to place what you are trying to do on a gradient scale and the auditor has several of these: The tone scale The know-to-mystery scale The eight dynamics The minus tone scale The reality scale These are the principle ones. Then you can ask the newspaperman's questions: When? Where? Who? What? How? Why? But you have to use judgement. And judgement tells you that when and where are the safe questions, and the most important; that what is very, very useful but sometimes has to be flattened; that who is a very essential question in selecting terminals to run; that how can be used and contains several processes that are good processes; that why is almost never used because the preclear never knows until he has answered all the others anyway. Auditors avoid asking why with admirable and deep wisdom. Shame-blame-regret questions (who do you blame for your condition, etc.) are hot. "Deserves" is a very good button. All of these things will produce usable needle action.

• Should "Step Six" be run as given in this manual?
• No. Do not select processes from this manual; processes are given poorly here and sketchily and only for their usefulness as examples of E meter usage.

• Who helped most in the assembling of the information this manual covers?
• L. Ron Hubbard. Also J.M. Brand, Don Breeding, John Galusha, L.R. Hubbard Jr., William Ransom, Johann Tempelhoff, Joe Wallace -- and this is a group of experts, that's for sure.

Chapter IX: Levels of E Meter Skill

Check yours from time to time.

1. Can recognize it as an E meter, knows it is used somehow in auditing.
2. Can set it up.
3. Can set it up and do pre-session routines.
4. Can conduct a "lie reaction" test.
5. Can report needle actions.
6. Can recognize and report all basic needle actions.
7. Can use these as an auditing guide in real session.
8. Has a familiarity with needle-preclear reactions sufficient to "read" minds.
9. Can produce the basic reactions at will on a pc.

It is understood that from 3 on parallels the gaining of skill as an auditor apart from E meter study.

Which level describes your present skill?

Chapter X: Clearing

The Hubbard Electrometer is used for clearing and only for clearing. It is true that this instrument could be used by low-budget county sheriff's offices as a "lie detector", and get better than big-city results. It's true also that Atlas missiles could be used by college pranksters to drop on people's heads, but that's not as yet what they are used for.

Clearing in Scientology is a thing of the spirit of man. Where this is forgotten, clearing is forgotten.

We are not going to gibber any gibberish about Scientific Method. If you don't operate on a better level of intelligence than that which the "method" scientists have been employing these past few millenia then you are not going to get much further than they did, which isn't very far.

So that: when you get your E meter and start taking apart a few reactive banks and getting some practice with the thing, don't play Boy Scientist with it and auditing it instead of the preclear.

You will hear the theory that E meters are used because people aren't willing to LOOK, and that the meter puts looking on a via. You want to watch out for these fellows who say they did thus-and-so with a preclear because they "took a look". Invariably this explanation means that they "took a look" at their own banks, which they were taking enough irresponsibility for not to know it was theirs.

The E meter doesn't put the auditor on a via but takes him off a great many vias. Auditor judgement is based on what the preclear is communicating and what he is avoiding communicating. Even if you DID accurately select out his facsimiles and look them over they would not assist your auditing. That would assist only the mysteries of squirrel-cagedom. Where does the squirrel go but round and round.

The fact is that the meter can tell you things that you wouldn't have found out without it, or that you wouldn't have found out when you needed it. And the preclear couldn't have told you.

How many preclears have you seen that could tell you when a process was flat? How many have accurately told you which this-life terminals or which past deaths and implantations should be run? How many have always told you accurately that they did have a present time problem when they did or that they didn't when they didn't.

If your answer wasn't "none" or "extremely few" then either you don't own an E meter or you need a manual on how to use it. Try this one.

"The preclear is always right."

Yes, but only in the sense that what the preclear does the preclear does.

Always believe a preclear. But don't do what he says. Do what YOU say and what good auditing know-how says. The Auditor's Code tells you how to do this seemingly impossible thing.

When you read the nimble meter you are reading the obsession of the spirit to create an effect upon the body in order to then become an effect of the body it has effected. It is a spirit which is convinced that it is the body, or that the body is senior to it. The spirit (thetan) is the preclear. The body is that part of the environment with which the preclear has most intimately locked terminals.

A clear is unobsessive toward the body. He can think a thought without automatically pulling in a facsimile upon the body. Thus he reads differently on the E meter. The body may still be the part of the physical universe most intimate to him, but the confusion is off the situation. It is: body driven by thetan; not: thetan convinced he is driven by body.

A clear can still be audited. And he can still be read on the meter.

But the meter is supposed to read aberrations isn't it? Then why would a clear show up on the meter? Because (1) he is in session (2) he's not trying to prove anything, he is trying to benefit from auditing (3) why isn't he O.T. yet?

We don't know whether he will register on the meter right up to the edge of O.T. We are pretty sure that it will register as far as we would need it and that if there is a place where it ceases to register anything but just the body itself that the thetan will be the easiest individual to communicate with, and get right answers from, that you ever didn't see. The worst bet you could ever make would be to decide that somebody was now O.T. because you couldn't read him. People will tell you now and then that they laid aside the meter because the preclear was so darned clear it wasn't necessary. They laid it aside actually because the preclear went out of session on them and they didn't know it.

The only time to lay aside the meter is where you are running one of the many non-E meter processes.

The E meter is strictly a mind-reading device. The mind is that collection of things which the thetan makes intervene between himself and the physical universe. When you ask someone, do you like cats, they automatically try out some cats mentally before answering. They, on an automaticity, mock up pictures of past cats. They decide on it by how well they like the sensation contained in those pictures. If they like it, they say, yes I like cats. The occluded (can't see pictures) case is the case that does it that much more automatically. You aren't going to take his word for it that he's not using pictures just because he can't see them. Quite the reverse.

Quite often you will be using the meter very little, but that very little counts.

One of the two or three most basic auditing skills is the observation and flattening of communication lag. The E meter is a specialized instrument for registering comm-lag. Any meter reaction (significant needle action) registers a comm-lag between the preclear and the item being addressed or the command being carried out. If you ask the pc about "mother" and get a three dial drop you know two things: (1) you have reached the preclear with your question (2) he was comm-lagging with himself on the subject of mother before you ever asked him about it. You will find that meter action and standard comm-lag observations correlate completely, with the E meter having an edge as to speed of detection.

E meter auditing nowhere cancels out the rules of auditing learned between 1950 and now.

So that the E meter code would include: Always clean up the needle action on any item being run which produced needle reaction.

That doesn't mean that when you are doing a scout you must stop and run everything that drops. The drop was already there. You must, however, clean up everything on which the process produced meter change. Just as the Auditor's Code, 1954, by L. Ron Hubbard states.

Learning to use an E meter requires the data you get the easy way from this manual and the knowledge you get the hard way from your fellow students as preclears, or from your friends, who are always over-eager to be "lie detected". You will probably give them some very good processing while learning your meter.

Using the E meter certainly becomes "second nature" to the auditor. You've been reading faces to some degree of accuracy all your lives. Faces and tightening necks and wrenching hands are thoroughly readable. You will find that meter actions are just as live and intimate to personality as the Mest called body and more so than your preclear's diary.

Learn it simple; avoid making "habits" and favorite practices with the meter. Don't decide to keep the sensitivity knob throttled way, way down so that only the "big" stuff shows up. In other words, don't preconceive the thing. The more preconceptions you buy the less you'll be on the job for that next pin-grabbing surge that turns into a theta bop and dissolves into a high stuckness.

And don't develop a distaste for certain E meter situations, such as the stuck needle down in the black below "1" or the "5" rise, etc. Whatever the preclear is doing to the meter he is doing because he is the preclear.

The Hopeless Needle has not yet been encountered.

Don't use the meter to avoid the preclear. Confront both.

Don't wait for needle actions -- produce them: Auditor AT CAUSE.

Don't play dumb about the E meter because you're not an electronics graduate. You never had it better. Think of all the stuff the electronics man has to un-think before he can understand a preclear's doings on the meter.

Don't forget the little things like the battery test and centering the meter and getting the hand-squeeze drop and setting your sensitivity. A dead battery should be replaced, not made a mystery of.

Never use the meter against a preclear. Pounce swiftly but without making it an overwhelm. Don't use the meter to get around the Code. Don't flinch horridly at the meter action and make the preclear think he is now going to be placed under arrest. (This is reserved for the Clear Test.)

Use it to make the preclear more right, not to find out where he's wrong. But be willing to find out where he's wrong.

Be overt; invade privacy, disobey social veneer; don't make friends -- make CLEARS.

The E meter is quite a helpful little gadget in that direction.

Appendix I: Reality-Spotting by E Meter

(Noted by Jan Halpern, D.Scn., A.C.C. Instructor, during teaching of Special Course, Summer 1959, Washington, D.C.)

Needle characteristics plotted on scale with numerical tone scale values, "old" Reality Scale and "new" Reality Scale.

TONE REALITY SCALE (I) REALITY SCALE (II) NEEDLE

40 to 20 Postulates Pan-determined Produces meter 20 to 4 Consideration creation phenomena at will. Self-determined Free needle. creation

4 to 2 Agreements Experience Free needle, drop at will.

1.5 Solid terminals Confront Drop

1.1 Terminals too solid Elsewhereness Theta Bop Lines solid

1 to .5 No terminal Invisibility Stuck, sticky Solid line

.5 to .1 No terminal Blackness Stuck, sticky Less solid line

.1 No real terminal Dub-in Rising needle No solid line (no confront; Substitute terminal not-is-ness)

0.0 No terminal Unconsciousness STUCK. Also stage No line four needle. (All machine -- no pc.)

The REALITY-SPOTTING BY E METER chart of correlations applies in two ways: (1) by the chronic standard reaction of the preclear (2) by type of material (facsimiles) contacted

(For complete description of human behavior at the numerical tone levels, study SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL by L. Ron Hubbard. Learn also the Hubbard Chart of Attitudes.)

Appendix II: Research Paper -- PAB No. 160, May 15th, 1959

(Professional Auditor's Bulletin) Memo to L. Ron Hubbard from Don Breeding and John Sanborn, dated April 6, 1959.

Don Breeding and I have been working out the harmonics of male and female AND neuter (objects) E-meter readings. We have found this "neuter" to exist.

The Meter is just about accurate enough to make these observable.

Purpose was to get more KNOW about these readings above and below and around "2" and "3". Especially the vast unplotted "3" to "6" region.

The harmonics (multiples of 5000 and 12000) are there and they show up unflaggingly in preclears.

We postulated the "neuter" as half way between 5000 and 12000 and found it shows up there or extremely close to there.

Smokey (being processed by Don) talks about his boat at 4-1/2 (4 x neuter). The three items tend to cluster and have an exact pattern like or mirror image of the clusters around 2 and 3. In other words, you get MFN or MNF, etc.

It works out like you would expect from reading "8-80". In looking this over one can authoritatively say, "WHAT self-determinism?" when he sees a preclear bounding around amongst these harmonics and handling the auditing command about as well as the combination MNF, etc., will let him.

We can get very precise about this.

Don has gotten a great many refinements on it already.

A guy who is reading "around 3" (2.75) isn't reading "near male clear", he's reading on the 2nd harmonic of FEMALE.

At around 3-3/8, we seem to have a good neuter point. They talk about objects.

The higher harmonics look to me like inversions and non-confronts, degree of. BUT, the high reading is always apparently subject to the proximity of the clusters.

One might even quip that preclears are looking for the Lost Chord.

The Male and Female readings at 12000 and 5000 ohms seem to be extremely accurate (in that on harmonics and sub-harmonics of them preclears answer up on the items, male or female).

It is kind of odd that the neuter setting makes any sense, but it seems to do so.

These clusters always present the picture of a preclear sitting at M, F, or N and looking at or being some effect of two other items.

As of today (April 3, 1959), Don has refined this a bit more -- he has plotted about eight levels (harmonics, layers, remotenesses from confrontingness, etc.) -- doesn't have exact information above 5 yet.

The best R is at 2 to 3 (as we have always observed). It contains F(2) N(2-1/2) M(3) -- the basic cluster.

All the others contain F-N-M also.

A preclear will needle around on one of these levels, hitting dropping, briefly sticking, etc., at those three main points. That preclear is doing quite well on "r", as compared with the preclear who jams (does a vertical identification of F's, M's, and N's around one point and possibly moving around and possibly staying around one point). He indicates that he is jamming by talking, at 4.25 for instance, about F items, M items, and N items, instead of talking about just N items when reading there and going to 3-5/8 to talk F or 4-3/4 to talk M items.

A preclear will remarkably enough ride smoothly down from a high harmonic following the path of the dotted lines on Don's chart and then work his clear range! It has also been noticed consistently that the preclear will surge to an exact M, N, or F. The bottom of a surge is always one of these points.

We have not as yet had a good look at a theta bop on this.

                                                          Best,
                                                          John Sanborn.

Appendix III: The Role of the E Meter in Clear Testing

Clear testing is the assessment of an individual in terms of all factors of a case to determine whether the individual has reached a stability of the level of clear being tested for.

Levels which can be tested include the release, the mest clear, and the theta clear. It would also be extremely easy to test for operating thetan if necessary.

These are tested wholly in relation to the definitions of these.

All that we need to know to test for clear is the definition, and the factors upon which individuals can aberrate downscale from that which is defined.

We are mainly interested in this manual in THETA CLEAR.

The outstanding characteristic of the theta clear is: stability at cause.

When we test for this we question and command the candidate concerning the principle items which can shake an individual from his position at cause. We test for those items which can yet make of him an unwilling effect.

There is no standard set of questions, although the candidate is always asked whether he is clear.

Whatever the person conducting the test -- the official tester is an HCO Board of Review representative specially trained for clear testing -- whatever he uses "against" the candidate he uses in order to then observe any possible reaction. Reaction (stimulus-response automaticity) is a basic ingredient in all aberration.

The E meter is therefore extremely important in clear testing, as it registers regardless of how deeply hidden or how well "reasoned out" the button may be, and it (this is also important) registers immediately.

People ask: why would a clear if he was clear want to take a clear test? Anyone upset about this is confusing how he feels about it now with how he is going to feel about it when he gets clear himself. Huff concerning clear tests is in itself of course disqualifying.

I think the question is pretty well cleared up by the statement that the HCO simply wants the information. Clearing is Scientology's business.

Needle Action

A clear registers a free needle. Just as the mest clear was found to be free on a thirteen-way bracket on HELP on any terminal, the theta clear is free on an Overt-Withhold on any terminal. He is not dramatizing any part of the overt-act-motivator sequence. Knowingly or unknowingly. He therefore does not get a rising needle, a drop, a theta bop, a stuck or sticky needle or a "stage four" needle on either overts or withholds. Just a free needle.

A clear test might or might not verbally address any of the things mentioned here. It would cover all of them one way or another.

The free needle and the pattern needle are not at all the same thing. Pattern needle disqualifies.

Every preclear has to some extent his own free needle which is different from the next preclear's. One difference would be the width over which it floats. Conceivably one could have a free needle with a wide enough flop to require some slight adjustment of the tone arm. Not too likely but possible. But if so, it would not keep going to the right or to the left, but would flop each way.

Always remember that a free needle looks free. And a pattern needle doesn't.

A pattern needle shows reaction, free needle not.

An example of the pattern is the "stage four" needle -- a combination of rise, stick, fall, rise, stick, fall.

A theta bop is not in all instances disqualifying. A wide theta bop can be indicating present time exteriorization. A theta bop in reaction to a facsimile says not clear.

A theta clear upon test can produce any standard needle action on command and at will.

Engrams

The mest clear has no engrams in restimulation. The theta clear has no engrams, but can, at will, create them.

Theta Clear has already run all the engrams necessary to resolve the case. In theta clearing engram running is an extreme cut above that which suffices for Book One (Dianetics) clearing and indeed for mest clearing, where engrams are not run as such.

The theta clear has run to the vanishment of all reaction the engrams necessary. He has then run them right back into full, complete, 3-D, 4-D, restimulation and key-in. He has gotten them again and then he has run them out all the way again. He has done this until he can give himself all of the major aberrative material in his erstwhile case and dismiss it: at will.

He can, then, when tested for clear, present a case as well as no case to the examiner, and with impunity, and swiftly, and at choice.

Aberration he can have and aberration he can dismiss.

He does not perform this by not-is-ness. He does it creatively, which means again: at cause.

This point is being emphasized somewhat here, since it is the key factor in theta clear testing.

Remember that the examiner never takes the candidate's word for anything. He fastens a gaze on the little dial of that E meter, gets a good grip on the tone arm, forgets all about the Auditor's Code and finds out whether he has got a clear there or just a "close one". Being close is a disqualify.

A clear is oriented, composed, "collected", does not have to be somewhere else to know where he is. Can be where he is. Is not told by the chair, the walls or his body where he is, but is where he is. Can answer for this without needle reaction which says otherwise.

A theta clear can exteriorize, can be exterior. This is a normal state or occurrence to him.

A theta clear is not tested for O.T.

O.T. (Operating Thetan) is the next echelon.

When he is at cause toward all the items in a clear test he is clear. He is really getting someplace in the universe, make no mistake.

    ********

This writer wishes to acknowledge large assistance in the matters of clear testing from the following D.Scn.'s: J.M. Brand, of the HCO Board of Review; Richard and Jan Halpern, veteran A.C.C. Instructors; L.R. Hubbard Jr., who has taught more A.C.C.'s than any other except for L. Ron Hubbard, to whom all of us are indebted for all of the material.

END OF DOCUMENT

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