From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 20 - January 1995
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Ethics and Aesthetics In Auditing
By Ulrich, Germany
ETHICS IS AN ORDERING principle. One's demand for ethical solutions
incites one to put things in order as best one can. One doesn't leave
circumstances simply as they are but changes them towards a desired,
optimum state. This usually doesn't go by smoothly but leads to
dynamic
activities.
When it comes off well and each thing has found its proper place with
relation to each other thing, the order thus brought about appears
balanced and harmonious. It appears aesthetical. Ethics lead to
aesthetics.
What is considered optimum in each given case depends on the
agreements
one has with oneself on the one hand and with the other participants
on the other. Accordingly it gets the more difficult to agree on
optimum ethical and aesthetical solutions the further one moves
up the dynamics, because with each higher dynamic the number of
participants grows.
The reactive bank is neither ethical nor aesthetical. It is formed
on the basis of doubts and invalidation of age-old goals and ideals.
It obscures the games concept of a thetan. One might even say: the
thetan uses his bank to obscure his games concept. Because
he doesn't dare to come close to his own game any more. Because
he was hit too hard once or twice before.
When this isn't confronted and cleaned up, mental disorder remains
and penetrates the being, doing and having of the whole of life.
The thetan doesn't pursue his originally postulated goals and ideals
any further. He deviates off them, gives them up and identifies with
foreign ones, i.e. those of others.
In this process he doesn't only descend on the emotional tone scale
but as well on the scale of ethics conditions: he becomes a liability
to himself, becomes doubtful, acts against himself with increasing
irresponsibility and finally winds up in confusion. His integrity,
his unquestioning loyalty to his own goals and values, gradually
comes to pieces. Yet weakened integrity (being) leads to disoriented,
senseless and even self-destructive actions (doing) with corresponding
results (having).
Life becomes less and less ethical and thus less aesthetical.
Real progress instead of theta cosmetics
In order to clean up such conditions auditing should rehabilitate
goals and polish up ideals. It should make the thetan feel convinced
that he can execute what he set out to do millennia ago.
Therefore auditing shouldn't restrict itself to giving the auditee
'a win' but aim at the Real Why, that is, the deeper reason
behind his deviations and aberrations. (Usually this is to be found
very early on the time track and is an irrational decision against
one's own game in favour of another's.)
Each approach to the case which would permanently raise a thetan on
the tone scale may be considered valid. Yet this by itself doesn't
suffice. Because raising tone isn't necessarily accompanied by
unearthing and re-accepting old goals and ideals. Though his tone
may go up, the ethics level (or perhaps games level) of the person
may not.
Providing momentary wins is like a straw fire flickering up briefly
and dying down soon. This way neither real progress nor real
liberation
are attained. And mind you - even the lowest pleasures such as
superficial adventures and thrills, such as aberrated entertainments
like drugs or torture, will raise tone temporarily. That this won't
elevate anyone ethically, goes without saying.
A KRC bridge
Supporting a thetan in undoing his self-created disorder, his muddle
of counter-postulates, will eventually make him find back to his
original,
positive games postulates.
He will move up not only on the emotional tone scale (ARC) but as
well on the scale of ethics conditions (KRC). From confusion he steps
up to knowing certainty, to the recognition of his own game.
He isn't a foe to himself any more, has done away with his doubts,
has made up for the errors of his past. He may start afresh
(non-existence).
These would be the end phenomena of a bridge that's geared primarily
to KRC instead of ARC: that a thetan
1. knows his goals (being),
2. backs up the ideal scene connected with attaining
them (having),
3. knows that he will eventually attain them against
all odds (doing).
That he would range way up on the tone scale, is a matter of course.
There you'd have an OT in the true sense of the word - he knows
what he's got to do, and does it. Tone 40: intention without
reservation.
He makes things go right, the famous 'supreme test of a thetan'.
It follows that the ideal scenes envisioned by him wouldn't be evil.
A high-toned being wouldn't become a second Hitler or Stalin. Much
as most thetans happen to be very mislead, they are deep down
basically
good. The more you audit them the more this goodness comes out.
And mind you: he who delivers such a bridge would have to be the
living
proof of it. With his own life he'd have to stand in for its
validity.
Free-style auditing
Although the reactive bank typical for Earth follows a certain
pattern, no two cases are fully alike. Consequently, pressing people
through a series of prefabricated rundowns and processes means
disrespecting
their individuality. Each 'standard' approach that purportedly
'fits all sizes' cannot do justice to the multilayeredness
and interwovenness of the individual case, and unvaryingly ends in
an accumulation of complicated, illogical and arbitrary emergency
solutions. At best it remains superficial. Such a technical approach
is disorderly (and therefore non ethical) as well as ugly
(non-aesthetical).
Firmly defined EPs - such as those typical for the CofS bridge -
certainly sell easily as they make the client feel as if he
was buying a defined product. Yet of necessity they make one compare
oneself and others with them, and oneself with others. Did one get
the desired result as described? Did the other fellow? Over such
competitiveness
one may easily invalidate what one has actually attained. Or one may
not dare say that what one meant to attain, never was attained. This
way suppressive standards are set.
Yet just as each thetan has got into his low ethics condition by
his own means, he will have to dig himself out in his own way. The
auditor assists him in that. When auditing is done right, it is fully
tailored to the needs of the auditee.
Auditing is not 'easy', even though it is often made to look
that way. In its essence it is the encounter, the naked, unadorned
encounter between two thetans of whom one needs help and the other
provides it. This can only be resultful through trust and skill,
through understanding and competence, in a word, through a supreme
combination of ARC with KRC. The auditor 'listens and computes',
as the definition of his activity has it, and indeed he doesn't do
any more than that. Any attempt to audit 'with the tech' instead
of on the straightest possible line from person to person, is
condemned
to fail or at least to stay superficial.
The various techniques and methods of auditing undoubtedly play a
large role, yet as an auditor one should be careful not to hide behind
them as a substitute for confronting the uniqueness of the auditee
one is facing. Auditing techniques may aid the session yet just as
easily may erect a wall between auditor and auditee. Only when the
auditor has fully internalized all fundamental scientological
principles,
understands them conceptually, has good TRs and - to top it -
is able to create the application of these philosophical principles
in his session from one moment to the next, will he imbue the sort
of vitality into his activity that would correspond to the auditee's
vitally felt need of change. Only then will the auditee be 'in
session'.
An optimum and therefore ethical-aesthetical application of
scientology
principles would mean attaining permanent releases and certainties
by the simplest means and minimal effort. Each step in the procedure
must follow logically out of the general auditing context and be
supported
by unequivocal arguments, not opinion. (This corresponds to the
definition
of 'professional' in the Management Dict.)
In this, conventional methods have their merit. There is no need to
change them, particularly if one didn't test them out properly when
they seemed to be unworkable. Becoming inventive after
misunderstanding
a word and subsequently failing is a poor show. And - as goes
for all science - new methods should simplify things, not complicate
them.
Following the peculiarities of a given case in an adequate manner,
a manner tuned to that person individually, accepting the disorder
presented by the auditee and aiding him to turn it into order,
in a word, pursuing the outpoints the auditee presents in form of
deviating postulates, one will soon hit upon the Real Why hidden
behind these outpoints. In this manner the case will fall apart all
by itself in no more than twenty to forty hours.
One does the right action at the right time. One works ethically.
Such procedure one might term aesthetical.