from International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 15 - January 1994
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org


Arbitraries

by Bob Ross, USA

My Co-auditor and I compared notes to determine the difference
between how he audits and how I audit.  He wanted to emulate my way
of running PCs on postulates but seemed unable to do so.

He had suggested that I might be PTS, to account for some losses
since our last session. that I was complaining of. It was clear to
me that his explanation implied the 10 Aug remedy. I took a look
at that, and was able to express the following idea of how his
approach to auditing differed from mine.

Two approaches

I said, I look at the PC not at auditing categories. You look at
Church
categories and remedies. You are looking for things in the PC through
a screen of church categories and remedies: Out lists, PTS,Out-Int,
Overts, Out ruds, Secondary in Restim, Ser Fac, Etc. You try to fit
your PC into these learned categories with ethics much as the inkeeper
Procrustes who made travellers fit his bed, by lengthening them or
shortening them (See Greek mythology or a good dictionary). If the
PC does not fit, you are at a loss.

I, on the other hand, look at the PC and what the PC is feeling and
only then look to see what remedies exist to handle what I have
noticed.
I keep my attention on the PC's attitudes, thoughts, emotions,
efforts, aches and pains.  I look at the PC first and the Tech second.
I remain alert always to find something in the PC that I
can handle. If I don't have a known remedy, I invent one, if I
can. The church would call that squirrel. Mostly I look for
postulations,
but I take up anything that I know will get off charge.

Until I find something specific to handle, I keep the PC talking.
If I observe anger, I ask the PC to run overts or I ask for a
frustrated
purpose. If I notice grief, I will ask for losses. If I notice a
dramatization,
I usually ask for a decision that led to that dramatization. If I
observe the PC upset with a terminal, I may run ARC Breaks or use
Two-way O-A (HCOB 11 Dec 64) on that terminal. I do anything
appropriate
to what I observe to get the PC more causative.

You write programs and work to set the PC up for actions. I look at
how that PC's case is stacked up and unstack, it one visible piece
at a time.

Two redundant concepts

We then continued our discussion. I cognited on two important concepts
I no longer pay attention to, as I have found them to be of limited
use. One of them is getting TA action, the other is getting off
charge.
I threw both of these out some time ago as primary session purposes.
My primary purpose in session is to help the PC to be free of self
created obstacles to health, freedom and happiness. My secondary
purpose is to remove postulates. That sometimes requires that I
follow a tertiary purpose of getting off charge, usually on terminals.
As I don't use a meter I no longer have the purpose of getting TA
action.

Getting off charge seems important, and often is important. Getting
plenty of TA action can be a good measure of getting off charge and
hence can be a good measure of auditor effectiveness. Happy PCs with
good case gain is an even better criterion though usually not possible
to measure quantitatively. Using TA action as a measure is numerical
and thus seems scientific, which may be one reason Ron latched on
to it.

But, neither TA action nor getting off random charge will necessarily
advance a case. My first example of this was my auditor's handling
of an entity he perceived in my space. Yes, We handled it. Yes, it
probably released some charge that would have been visible on the
meter and produced TA action. But, I felt no case advancement. I did
not end up feeling more causative.

Experience at Saint Hill

On the matter of TA action, I recall my experience at Saint Hill,
England (Saint Hill SpecialBriefing Course) when I was demoted to
the 'W' unit one time to relearn It'sa Style auditing. The
supervisors wanted me to advance again as quickly as possible, so
they gave me a PC, Mike Furze, who was known to produce TA action
if kept talking on the subject of his life in South Africa. I checked
for myself and found that Mike got no TA action and a high TA when
I asked about his childhood in London, where the heavy charge on his
case was. So, for a week I obediently kept him talking about South
Africa and got 20 Div or more per 2 1/2 hour session but I observed
no case gain, no brightening up.

The following week when I was being a PC in 'W' unit Ron gave
a lecture on PC indicators in which he said that case gain would be
proportional to the number of good indicators in session. He meant
such things as Meter reading well, PC cheerful, TA in range, Auditor
able to understand what PC is saying, etc(1).


In my second week of auditing Mike, I decided to apply what Ron had
said. I decided that if I could somehow use the Good Indicators that
accompanied talking about South Africa to looking at his childhood
in London, Mike might be able to run out his childhood in London.
I accomplished this by inventing the It'sa style process: 'Compare
your life in Africa with your childhood in London.'

This enabled him to confront and blow the charge on his childhood
and he made case gain. As his overall tone came up I tackled other
things with him, until by the end of the week he had achieved every
goal he had had when he started to get audited. This included a
partially
paralyzed finger, which he got control of in the last seconds of the
last session.

PC makes best gains when up tone

I told this to Michael Argue of Toronto, Canada in the following
terms.
PCs make the best gains when they are up tone. That is why it is a
mistake to end session on an F/N. My rule is, If you have the time
to go on, only end off, when you can't find anything more to run on
the PC.

Michael applied this truth in a new and very clever way. He had the
PC do rising scale at the beginning of session to raise the pcs tone
as high as he could before starting a process and found that the PC
made better gains. Running at laughter as during a line charge,
blows charge better and faster than running the same thing at crying
and grief.

If you ever get your PC up to line charging about anything, remind
the PC of the PC's worst problems and conditions. Be watchful, however
and if the PC stops laughing, hysterically, drop that and go back
to what got him laughing in the first place. Remind him of something
he will really laugh at and alternate between what produces laughter
and what brings him down tone until he can laugh freely at both.

Other arbitraries

Some other arbitraries I have stopped believing in are: That,

1)one should ignore comments per TR-3 and TR-4.

2)one uses TR-4 to not handle BD originations.

3)Anti Q and A is important.

4)TA action equals case gain.

5)you don't handle a BD item that departs from a C/S.

6)one must always use a meter when auditing.

7)one never indicates charge that doesn't read.

8)you don't C/S in the chair.

9)you don't give or receive verbal data.

10)you never audit a PC on drugs.

11)Ron is sole source.

12)OTs cannot hurt themselves by committing overts
against people who have been declared to be enemies of $cn.

13)Other Determinism is higher than Self Determinism
per Responsibility Scale (0-8 p. 119 or 121)

14)Never audit a PC for free or on credit as they
won't make gains.

15)Flunking when coaching.

16)Don't C/S in the Chair.  Don't change a program.

17)Never take up or indicate charge that does not
read on the Meter.

18)No Verbal Data.

19)Study Tech is Complete

20)No assist without a C/S.

21)Figuring ways that typographical errors can be
correct.

22)OTs can commit overts without harming themselves.

23)Unaceptable upper level cognitions

24)ARC Break F/Ns mean the auditor made a mistake.

25)PC's can be harmed by auditing errors.

26)Listing is dangerous.



Bob has written a 10 page document on the 23 arbitraries listed
above $5.00 plus $1.00 airmail anywhere, Bob Ross, 7826 Foothill
Blvd, Sunland CA 91090 USA


(1)see Technical Bulletins... vol. V p. 445, HCO Bul. 29 Jul 1964
'Good Indicators at Lower Levels.'.





Fri Jul 21 20:36:05 EDT 2006