5.0 GRADES OF RELEASE

5.1 The Grades as Basic

As I have said before, the lower level grades of release are also the ultimate OT levels. The theory behind the grades processes does not require the presence of earlier engrams or secondaries (incidents of loss) and can stand alone without the existence of prior aberrations.

Because these are basic, they can be addressed on anybody at any level and, as long as the person's attention is not fixated on something else, they can be run to a point of release. But all we get is a temporary release (which may last for years or lifetimes) rather than erasure because of the problem of accessibility.

It took me a long time to come around to realizing this. I kept looking for a bigger basic that would undercut these grades. But everything I found (including the penalty universes and the reality wars) was preceded by earlier problems and upsets and failures to communicate. And before the penalty universes, the implants are lighter rather than heavier, usually just consisting of aesthetically presented false data which encouraged aberration.

The only thing I ran that did not have some underlying feeling of already being slightly out of communication was the original jewel of knowledge. That experience was simply interesting and aesthetic and talks you into a few subtly abberating ideas such as the idea that communication could be harmful or it might not be good to know too much because it might spoil the game. And we were shown the lie that if you could really forget something, it would stop bothering you.

So we were talked into starting in on this path, but we were not forced into it. There is no force or pressure in the original jewel of knowledge.

Our earliest mistakes were cutting communications, blocking knowingness, choosing not to connect with (or reach) certain things, and choosing to forget things. And these were all done willfully with no prior reason except for the convincing arguments of the jewel of knowledge. And we did not do these things with everything. You did not start out by cutting communication with everyone. You initially just cut communication with one person and kept talking to everybody else. You only forgot a few things and decided to not-know a few things rather than obscuring everything at once. And that is how we all differ because we applied these things very selectively initially and we each made different choices.

And then we built the next layer of aberration on top of these, and that layer was the more complex aberrations of problems, overts, upsets, making yourself right, etc.

5.2 The sequence of grades, corrected

Ron originally put out the grades 0 to 4 in 1965. Initially these were set up with the idea that each entire grade ran to a single floating needle and could be done with a single process. For the purposes of training, a number of other processes were also lumped together with each level because they required comparable auditor skill. As a result, help processing was included with level 1 problems and recall processes were include with level 0 communications. It was soon realized that recall processes needed to be run as a separate grade and this was included with grade zero as a sort of freebie.

Then the theory of expanded grades came out and as many processes as possible were added to each grade. This made deeper and more stable releases.

But we still have multiple grades (such as running help processing as part of the problems grade) lumped together. This is not a fatal flaw, but it can give trouble.

Each of the grades should be run to the point where a big release happens and then it should be dropped for the moment rather than trying to push too deep on one line while other areas are being bypassed.

If, for example, you combine help processing with problems processing, you will either:

a) fail to get the big release on help and shift over to running problems when you should be finishing the help release first. b) get the big release on help and then overrun it trying to finish all the help processes so that you can run some problems c) get the big release on help and then mistakenly think it is a problems release and miss the entire problems grade d) get lucky and make both release points even though you don't know what you're doing

We also have missing lower level grades. The very fact that we sometimes need to run an invalidation or evaluation rudiment indicates that there are grade releases available on these. I can't say for sure what all the processes would be at this time, but it is an area to be addressed and a subject for further research.

We also have a case where some much more advanced processes have been included with grade 0. These are the "From where could you communicate to a ____" style processes. These were originally developed in the late 1950s as high level OT processes. These are actually a gradient towards power processing and probably belong somewhere between grade 4 and grade 5 on the current grade chart.

Here I will lay out a tentative series of grades. To avoid confusion, I will label them Step 1, Step 2, etc. because the words grade, level, stage, and section have all been used already in Scientology.

A. FIRST GROUP: POSTULATED ABERRATIONS

These are the earliest and have no underlying prior reason (except for the predispositions in the jewel of knowledge) and at basic are handled by postulate and by pushing through instead of finding reasons why.

Step 1: Confront and Knowingness Release The person doesn't look and doesn't know because he decided not to. The org often gets this one accidentally because the TRs (given in the communications or HAS course) can produce it. But processing can also be done here. It would use "willingness" type processes like grade 0 does. For example, "What would you be willing to find out about yourself" would be a key process. The "Look around and spot something you like" style processes also belong here.

Step 2: Doingness Release This is reach and withdraw type processing. At basic, the PC chooses not to reach by his own decision, the reasons why can be bypassed because they don't really stop him, he stops himself. At beginning levels, these are the objective processes, and the org currently delivers them on the Survival Rundown. But in more advance running, this also includes many of the OT drills.

Step 3: Recall Release This is currently trained on level 0, but delivered (correctly) as a separate grade in auditing. The book self analysis also fits here and shows us how to get the release on a self audited basis.

Step 4: Communications Release Here is the real grade 0. The "from where .." processes shouldn't be run as part of it. They are nice processes but belong higher on the chart. The org gets away with running them here because they put such an emphasis on endless arduous setup auditing before starting grade zero. In truth, the real grade zero processes can usually be run immediately and you can probably even get a self audited release with some kind of book similar to self analysis. But if you did it in a quick and easy way like this, you would get in trouble on the current processing lineup because of having more advanced routines mixed in with the easy grade zero ones.

B. SECOND GROUP: BASIC ABERRATIONS OF THOUGHT

Here we have the things which build up on top of the original aberrations. These can be pushed through sometimes, but you often need to pay attention to underlying reasons (such as problems coming from incomplete communications) or mechanisms (such as solutions becoming new problems).

This is generally where the person is most aware of being abberated. If he notices an aberration of communication (and he often doesn't), he has some hope of pushing through it, but if he notices a problem, it often doesn't work to try and push through it (because he must dig out something earlier) so he tends to sit there with a pile of problems that he is aware of but can't handle.

In this list, I have put problems processing before help (currently the org runs help first as part of grade I) on the basis that problems are earlier (they can rest on incomplete communications, whereas help doesn't even show up on the track until things are going badly) and because help involves a bit more responsibility.

Step 5: Problems Release The org trains this on level 1 along with objectives (which are covered in step 2 above) and help processing (which should be a separate grade). They have a good lineup of processes in this area, but they put much to much in the way of the PC before they get around to running it. These are actually easier to run than the problems rudiment (which they start doing right away). Although I have this down in step 5, this is intended to be a fast lineup without endless preparation or other higher level processes mixed in, so that you should be able to get here pretty fast.

Step 6: Help Release Now is the time to do the help processes that they currently teach on level 1 and mix in with problems processing.

Step 7: Overts (Guilt Release) This is grade 2 as taught and delivered by the org. If we are doing multiple passes through the grades, this is the longest one and a subset of the processes could be used in the first pass. It also includes some "confront" processes which might belong in Step 1 above (but maybe only on a second pass through the grades?).

Step 8: Change Release The "Change" processes (which handles resistance to change, etc.) are currently taught and audited as part of level 3. They are really a separate grade and should be run that way. There is an early aberration on how it is a betrayal of others if you change your mind etc. and it would be possible to add more processes here which address that.

Step 9: Evaluations Release This is a new level. It is easier to confront than real upsets, but is one of the underlying causes. Early on, people jammed ideas down each others throats (often to be "helpful") and eventually they started getting upset at the enforced communication and reality. This is new ground that needs to be researched, but it would include things like "what evaluation have you enforced on another" and running off the reasons for evaluating ("give me some reasons for evaluating for somebody"). This level should also include some handling on false datums ("what false datums have you pushed on another" etc.).

Step 10: Release from Upsets (ARCXs) This is grade 3 as delivered by the org. But when we remove the change processes, there is not very much left. They never did enough on the subject of taking apart the aberrations of enforced and inhibited affinity, reality, and communication. The write-up I did on actual GPMs includes some new processes on this which I aimed at the GPM terminal and which could be generalized into non-specific grade 3 processes that should be run here.

Step 11: Invalidation Release I put this after ARCXs because it is a very high gradient. Whereas evaluation is only "pushy", invalidation is a direct attack and often exceeds the force of most ARCXs. People's service facs (see below) and other heavier factors also often come into play in this area and this a gradient towards running those levels.

Step 12: Responsibility Release The org mixes this in with grade 4, but it should be it's own separate level.

C. THIRD GROUP: ABERRATIONS OF EMOTION AND LOSS

Unlike the earlier groups, these areas cannot become abberated until the person has sunk low enough to lose things and feel emotion. ARC Breaks can happen on purely enforcing or inhibiting ARC, but hate, vengeance, and jealousy only occur after the fact of loss. The same is true of all the problems in survival and self righteousness and making yourself right (grade 4). The earliest problems in survival are connected with loss (not pain or engrams) because you had the problem of making your mockups survive long before you yourself could be smashed or wiped out.

Also, it is only at this stage in our evolution that we began to have real problems with havingness. That also rests on earlier losses.

Games processing also comes into play here. It is possible to have games without loss, but loss is often a factor. Certainly playing chess or poker requires loosing things during the course of the game even if there is no subsequent loss or penalty.

Unfortunately, there has been no where near enough research on these areas and more needs to be found. I will do the best I can here, but be prepared for future revisions.

Step 13: Games Processing Since the earliest losses are only during the course of a game and are accepted by choice (and are of short duration), this is the easiest entry point. There are some good early processes such as "please pass the object" in "Creation of Human Ability", but more are probably needed.

Step 14: Wasting You have to be able to waste things to play a game successfully. This is another area that touches on loss and also on the subject of exchange (see below). The processing here should include the money process ("mock up a way to waste money"), and similar processes such as "mock up a way to waste work" (which will undercut many of the societies aberrations), and "mockup a way to waste energy" etc.

Step 15: Exchange This is a key aberration which underlies our later societies. Exchange is basically a trap and is one of the nasty predispositions that gets us in trouble because it pushes our buttons on fair play and uses them to make us trap ourselves. It is one of the reasons you are in compulsive agreement with the MEST universe law of conservation of energy, which is really a way of blocking your own efforts. Getting rid of the charge on exchange doesn't mean that you start stealing from people (that's a dramatization of being trapped by exchange and rebelling against it without confronting it), it simply means that you don't care and are not blocked by some crazy idea of all the equations having to be in balance. Some research is needed here. You might start by running off overts (cheating others etc.) and then reasons and finally getting around to the basics which is that its only a game and you shouldn't have to play unless you're in the mood. This has to include the willingness to give things away for free.

Step 16: Protect This is a new level, but it is run basically the same as Help (step 6 above) with "protect" substituted for "help" in the commands. This is the earliest button on loss. The SOP8D safe places type processes (see the 5th ACC and also the bright think rundown which was used briefly and then canceled) might also fit in here.

Step 17: Service Facsimiles (Making others wrong). This is the grade 4 process. The org uses it sooner, but it is really a handling for failures in survival and on that basis it belongs late in the sequence. Also, in the standard grades lineup, it requires listing and nulling techniques because it is too heavily charged and done at this point it should probably be addressable directly with simple processes or could even be handled on a self audited basis.

Step 18: Loss Here we need some specific processes to key out loss. One would be the "in this lifetime, what do you use to keep others from leaving" that I mentioned earlier. There should be a lot of others, but research is needed here. See the stuff on loss in the assist section above.

Step 19: The evil emotions (hatred, jealousy, and vengeance) Here we are into some really hot areas. These things show up in mysticism as major roadblocks that need to be conquered, but they have no processes for them. Neither does the org except for using the general incident running and cleaning up ARCXs as an undercut (which does work to some degree). Here you want to raise the person up to the point where he doesn't need to take vengeance and doesn't get jealous if his wife sleeps with someone else or he gets beat out of a promotion and so that he no longer has a need to hate green skinned people or whatever. Its not that you would encourage your enemies or turn the other cheek, its simply that you would play things as a game (if you felt like it) instead of being swamped by a blind drive to smash others. These emotions bring about a blindness which is terribly self destructive. Maybe we would even need 3 levels here instead of one. I can hardly guess at the processing needed, but it would include a willingness for others to have and a freedom from consequences.

One key to this area is that its not the action but the tremendous significance placed on it that invokes the blind reaction. It's not that the guy's wife spent an hour exercising with his best friend, no matter how intimate those exercises were, it's that he places an incredible significance on the fact and imagines all sorts of think going on in the other peoples heads and postulates all sorts of consequences that shatter his life. The old processes on "This Means ..." (see the anatomy of the spirit of man congress tapes etc.) might be useful here. Mocking up unpleasant thoughts in other peoples heads might also help. Also inventing consequences.

I never had a lot of charge in this area myself, but I see other people going just crazy on it. If someone's shooting at me, I damn well want them to stop, but I could care less if they made amends for the damage as long as they mend their ways and don't do it again. I'm not sure when or how I blew the charge on this, but I can find early incidents where I'm swamped with jealousy and vengeful impulses, so it must have been handled at sometime.

Step 20: Suppressives People do suppress each other. This is the final stage of the game when you're the only one and its kill or be killed. An individual suppressive situation needs to be handled when it comes up (and its nowhere near as common as the org thinks), but that's not a general handling. Since we've already handled most of the factors involved in suppression, this is a good point to finish it off so that the person neither can be suppressed (in other words start roller coastering) by anyone else nor will he have the urge to do others in when he is sinking (because that never really helps him). Again we could use some research here. The suppressed person rundown gives us a starting point. So does the rundown for handling "an engram matching present time dangers". We can also get things from the general anatomy of suppressive behavior, such as loosing sight of individual targets and blurring them into generalities.

D. FOURTH GROUP: THE UPPER GRADES

Middle period Scientology only had 3 upper grades. These were Power (grade 5), Power plus (grade 5A), and grade 6. These have mostly disappeared because they are not supposed to be run on a clear, and most people get run on Dianetics instead and reach Dianetic clear when they do.

I think that this is a mistake. Power processing sometimes produced a case state that was higher than the current OT7 and its a shame to bypass it. It probably can be done on a clear, but you would probably get in trouble trying to introduce it into the middle of the orgs current OT processing because they've got the person all stirred up and in the middle of stuff for the entire run from OT2 (or the old clearing course) up to OT7 because they are restimulating things without complete handling until he makes it through solo NOTS. With the correct data and techniques (see earlier in this write-up), that probably ceases to be a problem, but even then you would have to be careful not to jam these levels into the middle of something that is only halfway handled and drawing the guy's attention.

In an ideal lineup, I think you would run these things before you went into a major Dianetic processing level. That doesn't mean that you can't do some Dianetic handling or other incident running (a bit of that is nice as an introduction to the subject) but that the thorough go for broke intensive Dianetic rundowns should be done after power processing etc. The whole idea of power was to key out engrams wholesale and that would set the guy up to run Dianetics as a fast and effective level. He might even run Dianetics solo with that kind of preparation.

Step 21: Location

One of the basic aberrations is being located in a single location. Here is where we should run the "From where could you communicate to ..." style processes. Then do a similar rundown on "from where could you (agree / disagree - alternately) with ....". Then run "from where could you perceive a ...". If possible, you should get to the point where you don't need to be here to perceive and operate here. That would be going exterior to the physical universe.

Step 22: Causation

Now in the same style, run "from where could you mockup ...". You should work up to things like somatics, sensations, emotions, bodies, games, and machinery, and then finish off with "from where could you mockup a bank". This might produce a clear.

Step 23: Sources

Here would be the place to run spotting sources (power process 4 which is the first one normally run). But with the above preparation, it would probably be runnable as a simple spotting process instead of an exotic listing technique. They used to run this on people who had received a total of ten or twenty hours of auditing in their whole lives and of course it ended up as a hot out-gradient process with all sorts of special rules and worries connected with it.

But this needs to be an expanded level instead of a single process.

One interesting thing I noticed in various freezone write-ups on this process is that the people who wrote them generally thought that the process ended with the cognition that "I'm source" or something like that. Well that's nice and its probably what you get most of the time (and you have to take what you can get without invalidating or continuing), but I went clear and keyed out OT on this process and something more happened. When I was run on it, I thought that the command was a covert way of getting me to spot the time and place where I had first mocked up a reactive mind and from where I was still mocking the bank up even now. And that is what I spotted, and that's why I got the spectacular result instead of the mundane one.

So lets run more processes here, aimed at reaching that higher state. This might include "spot a source that you/another/others are mocking up". "spot a time when you mocked up a bank", etc.

Another good process to run here would be (run alternately): a) What have you created b) What has another created c) What have others created

Step 24: Power

Here would be the rest of grade 5. Again, it probably needs to be expanded and have more processes aimed at the result.

This would be an appropriate place to put some more processes on the subject of not-isness.

A) Recall not-ising something Recall another not-ising something Recall others not-ising something

B) Write down some things that mustn't be allowed to appear. If one doesn't blow by inspection, then mockup copies of it and throw them away / shove them into the body.

C) Spot times when you decided it was safer not to look, then mockup looking at what you avoided seeing.

D) Handle overts of getting others not to look Handle overts of getting others to not-is things

E) Write down some things it would be better for people not to know about. For each one, run alternately, what should/shouldn't be known about it.

Step 25: Power Plus

Here would be the grade 5A processes. Again, more are needed.

Some possible ones are as follows:

25.1 Agreements (run alternately) a) What agreements have you made b) What agreements have you disagreed with. (then run the same on flows 2 and 3)

25.2 Enforced Agreements a) What agreements have you enforced on another b) What agreements have you inhibited (also run on flows 2 and 3)

25.3 Create a) What effect would you be willing to create b) What effect would you be willing for another to create

25.4 Enforced Create a) What do you have to mockup b) Give me some reasons for mocking that up (also run on flows 2 and 3)

25.5 Win/Lose a) Give me a reason for winning b) Give me a reason for losing (also run on flows 2 and 3)

Step 26: Perception

This might be a good place to run some processes on perception. Maybe "What would you be willing to let others see" etc. Another action might be to do the rudiments on each of the 5 senses.

Step 27: Protest

This is a hot button. It not only causes things to read that are not there, it causes the PC to mockup things that aren't really wrong with him. What you resist, you become. If you insist that somebody is stupid and they protest heavily, it can get them resisting being stupid and trying to prove that they're not and that can lead to dramatizing stupidity.

Currently we only use this as one of the prepcheck buttons or a repair question. We could use some general processing here. Possibly something like "what have you protested", "what did you mockup to communicate that" run alternately.

Step 28: The Force on Words

Part of the reactive A=A is to equate words with the force or mockups that the word represents. GPM end words and root words are actually locks on real impacts associated with words. Here we want to blow the mechanism by which the person mocks up the force when the word is said.

This is slightly experimental.

Take a fiction book filled with violence etc., find a violent section of it, and start reading it.

Repeat the following with each paragraph (if the paragraph is really long, break it in half, if its excessively short, then combine two paragraphs):

As you read, mockup an impact for each verb, based on the literal meaning of the verb (not the story content that you are reading).

Read the paragraph again, this time, mockup a picture of impact without force for each verb.

Read the paragraph again, this time only reading the words and mocking up nothing.

Read the paragraph again, and mockup a mass for each noun.

Read the paragraph again, and mockup a picture, without mass, for each noun.

Read the paragraph again, this time mocking up nothing.

Then go on to the next paragraph.

Step 29: Dramatization

It would be a shame to miss out on the "what am I dramatizing" process from grade 6. But up this high, and run on someone who is probably already clear, the answers might not be in terms of simple implant GPM root and end words. You would have to let the answer be whatever it was going to be. The handling, per 3rd ACC style tech, would be to causatively dramatize it (or mockup dramatizing it) and then and then not dramatize it (or mockup not dramatizing it) alternately it until it blows. Then get the next thing, etc.

Step 30: Force

It would be nice to get the person's confront up on force before doing extensive Dianetics processing. Perhaps, "what force would you be willing to confront", or even some of the courage processing from the 3rd ACC (discussed in another write-up).

Another good process might be "Spot some impacts you could be curious about receiving".

Step 31: Goals

Before directly addressing goals, it would be nice to key them out. The second and third ACCs give us some techniques here, such as "spot some goals you don't have".

Step 32: The Actual GPM

This would be a good point to find the actual GPM goal as discussed in the write-up on actual GPMs. Unlike implanted goals, this actual goal does not have to be handled or opposed after it is found. It is comfortable and satisfying to know what it is even if it hasn't been fully discharged. On a first pass through the grade chart, it might not be appropriate to do a full handling or line plot, but the goal should at least be found.

Note that all of the above grades are keyouts. You could do them lightly or deeply, and take multiple passes as needed. Only the final one (handling the current actual GPM) might conceivably be taken to erasure early on. I think that at the top, these will erase in reverse order, working from step 32 down to step 1.

5.3 BLOWING THE BANK

If you start a thorough grades rundown, the odds are that somewhere along the way, the entire bank will blow temporarily.

Its a mistake to think that its all gone. But the PC has so much new open areas available to him that you can't continue with grade processing until he has expanded further and run into the next layer of trouble. This is the time to do OT and erasure style techniques (see below) until such a time as he runs into his own case again. When he does, then carry on with the next grade in sequence, and if you finish the entire series, then start over, running more processes and going deeper.

Taking the analogy discussed earlier, of clear and black areas of the mind with a gray band of accessibility, when the person "blows the bank", much of the gray and black clear up and a great deal more stuff will be in the gray band of accessibility. He never looses this gain, he just gets bigger, so that he fills the newly cleared area, and then sees himself to be abberated again because he has run into what is left.

Oddly enough, as you keep blowing more and more layers of the bank, the problems etc. tend to remain mundane but the whys get more and more exotic. For example, at low levels, one might flinch at car fumes because they restimulate an engram. Higher, one might flinch because they are impacting the environment he is trying to protect. Even higher, he might flinch because they offend his aesthetic sensibility. Even higher, he might flinch because its someone else's mockup filling up his space.

The real truth of the matter is that he is still creating his first and most basic problems (from the earliest track period) using the mundane stuff that currently surrounds him. When you do a light handling and blow some current thing, to some degree it keys out the entire thing all the way down at rock bottom, but the bottom has not been viewed or erased and eventually he'll get it back into the mundane world (but it will come in on some other channel because he has handled the specific current thing that was run on the first keyout).

There are a number of big states of regained awareness that blow the bank temporarily and make significant inroads into the black and gray areas. These include but are not limited to:

a) Regaining control over mocking up the force in mental pictures and over mocking up the pictures themselves. This is the usual state of clear as attained on Dianetics.

b) Freedom from (no longer obeys or mocks up) implanted items and commands. This is the state of clear as is usually attained on the clearing course, and which is normally attained by Dianetic clears when they do OT 2.

c) Freedom from all compulsive assignment of reactive or associative significance to things. This is the state of clear (sometimes called theta clear) that occurred occasionally on power processing.

d) Freedom from compulsive creation of a time track. This is the state of clear OT usually achieved on L10 and occasionally achieved on deep running of grade 2.

e) Freedom from (no longer obeys or mocks up) thoughts or mockups provided by entities. Does not confuse his own thoughts with theirs. Can blow them by inspection. This is the state of cause over life, usually attained on Solo Nots and occasionally attained by a thorough run on OT3.

f) Freedom from location. Exterior to the MEST universe. Capable of free thought outside of the game and can consider things independently of his own survival. I got this on continuing past the solo Nots ep.

g) Freedom from arbitraries. This happened on running the penalty universes. The tone scale and all sorts of other stuff blew.

h) Freedom from the limitations to three dimensions. Able to visualize four dimensional mockups easily and capable of spotting four dimensional directions etc. This finally happened for me when I spotted and ran the reality wars.

There are more, but these are the ones that blew the bank for me. If you skip one (I got state c first, then a, then d, then b), the lesser state is still exceptionally good when you make it and clears up some more stuff (but its not as big as the higher one which you got earlier). In other words, this is not a totally mechanical progression where each state covers everything below it.

5.4 UPPER LEVELS

Its almost a joke to identify these as upper levels because the very top would consist of grade processes taken to erasure instead of going for a key out.

These are really aimed at the "force band" which lies between the human condition and the basic area of the track.

Here we have a problem as to what sequence to run things in, especially in the area of switching off between upper levels and grade processing.

The modern Scientology bridge lines up a small percentage of this stuff into a series of OT levels, but, aside from sales and status buttons, the structure is much too rigid, is too narrow in scope, and sometimes bypasses charge by forcing the person's attention in one direction when it needs to go in another.

First and foremost, if a PC is interested in and capable of running something (and you'd be surprised how many things can be run even with little preparation), there is no sense in denying him because of some arbitrary order. But it might be a mistake to try and do a long thorough rundown at the wrong point. A beginner might do well with a bit of Dianetics or some problems processing or even a few OT drills run lightly, but trying to go for a full completion might get you into a long grinding run because there's too many other things being missed and it runs too slow. So you do a short light run and then get him onto the grades or the steps above.

You can always do a little bit of something as an assist as long as it is not over the PCs head.

A student who is studying this stuff intensively and has a good bag of skills can pretty much run anything on himself in any order and get away with it.

Once a person begins doing OT drills successfully, he can always work on a few of them in between each grade as a horsepower booster.

The processes here are characterized by either raising horsepower or erasing things as opposed to the keyouts which occur on the grades or steps given above. Although they can be worked lightly at any time (if the PC is up to doing the action), intensive runs should be left for those points where the bank has blown and should be carried on until he bumps into the next layer of case and is ready to run more grades processing.

5.4.1 Dianetics and Incident Running

The one gray area is Dianetics and other incident running. This does not go well right after the bank has blown because he must pull things back in to run them. On the other hand, when he has too much charge and bank kicking around, it is also not the best technique because it is too slow. It is best done when he's flying but hasn't quite blown the bank, or when he's just starting to bump into the bank again after running advanced levels during a bankless period. This makes it a matter of judgment (the exception is assists, because he already has the incident on his plate and its a short run that's not liable to get him putting things back that are gone). It might be best to do it as a step 33 in the above sequence of steps, but there might also be other times when it is appropriate.

For beginners doing light co-audits, such as the current Dianetic book course, the 1966 technique, modernized, might be the best bet.

Normal R3R in the final NED variation is the most powerful technique until the person blows the bank on a willingness to confront force (Dianetic clear). You could even use it briefly on a clearing course clear until he has the force cognition. But once he has this, R3R becomes too slow and formal and is just asking to have him mock up stuff that is gone and pull in pictures from entities etc. and get into various kinds of trouble. Its not that you can't run incidents, its that you can't grind them to death once he's regained his confront of force.

Above this point, you can either use alternate spotting, or run a souped up recall technique that includes spotting and scanning the incident but does not grind away at the person with unnecessary formal commands. These are best done solo to avoid the problem of the auditor pushing the person into mocking up stuff that isn't there.

Despite these caveats, it is very important for the person to run incidents because that is what restores his awareness of his previous existence.

A NOTE ON XDN:

The biggest mistake made in modern Scientology was the technique known as Expanded Dianetics (XDN) which was intensively used in the 1970s and then was pretty much abandoned. This is the only Scientology rundown that actually developed a reputation for making people worse. The biggest flaw was the use of listing techniques to find incidents that were not ready to be run, or even worse to make mistakes in listing which caused the person to mock up incidents, or pull in the bank, or grab incidents from entities etc. The second deadly flaw was aiming this technology at evil purposes. An evil purpose is always late on the chain (the being is basically good) and its like running the end of a story without finding the beginning. If you actually get a real one, its probably the final items of an actual GPM and there will be thousands of heavy incidents earlier during the decay of the GPM which are unrun and bypassed by this foolish approach. Even worse, the common errors in listing would hang the person with evil purposes he didn't have and really spin him in.

Audited NOTS was originally developed to cure the problem of people picking up entities' pictures and using them as their own incidents in response to screwed up XDN listing and incident running techniques. This is the real reason that the org thinks that NOTS must be run extensively by an auditor before the PC can do it solo (despite the fact that the person has already done the much more difficult OT3 techniques solo). The cases that had too much XDN were so caved in that it took careful work on the part of an auditor to dig them out.

The problem of making listing mistakes in finding evil purposes and sticking the person with ones that aren't there can be handled by correcting the lists.

Unfortunately, the problem of having stirred up a real evil purpose is not so easily handled. The false purpose rundown helps somewhat because it undercuts the evil purpose and looks for what happened earlier. But its no more than a lick and a promise if he got into the wildly RSing (Rock Slamming) closing section of an actual GPM. This is the one RS that still occurs on an advanced case (Clears don't normally RS, most RSes come from entities on an advanced case). Your best bet in digging out a screwed up XDN case is to use NOTS and list corrections and FPRD tech etc. to cool them down, and then (when their up to getting it) go for the Actual GPMs which will undercut these late in the game evil purposes by exposing the high purposes which decayed into the misbegotten and viscous fighting that one sinks to in this universe.

By the way, the XDN tapes and materials are worth studying. If you discard the dangerous L&N approach and drop the madness of searching for evil purposes, there are still some useful insights and advances which should really be incorporated into normal Dianetics.

5.4.2 OT Drills

This is a huge topic. There are the drills used in the various versions of OT 1, and the old OT levels 5 through 7, and the processes in the various early books (such as Creation of Human Ability) and the tons of stuff on the early tapes.

I've also come up with a great deal more of these. They will be included in another write-up.

5.4.3 Implant Platens

Again we have a huge array of materials. There are the platens of the clearing course and OT2 which can easily be found on the internet. I have come up with a good deal more, which will be included in another write-up.

There are also the penalty universes, which will be covered in their own write-up.

5.4.4 Handling Theta

There is also handling entities as is done on OT3 and Nots, plus more advance handling of machine entities and split pieces of yourself as discussed in the write-up titled "Divide and Conquer".

There is also the handling of theta machinery and other structural things. I haven't done a lot in this area yet. Besides blowing entities out of these things, there is the subject of actually dealing with the structure, spotting underlying postulates, and otherwise regaining control of things that are running on automatic. Ron covered a bit of this in the 3rd ACC tapes, but there is a lot of research that is still needed in this area.

Another target is the true anatomy of Matter/Energy/Space/Time and the mechanics of reality. Again we have some of it, but more research is needed.

At a minimum we always have mockup processing, ITSA, and alternate spotting techniques for prying away at unknown areas.

5.5 SUMMARY

I know there is a lot here. It really is a lifetime study. Don't let the sheer size of it stop you. Any forward progress on this line will remain with you in the course of your future lifetimes (if you even need to have future lifetimes instead of simply wishing bodies in and out of existence or learning to operate comfortably in a bodiless state).

If you've read this far with good comprehension, then you are at least an advanced student rather than a PC or patient, so if something really catches your interest, then go ahead and study it and run it and don't worry too much about formal procedure. The Tech is meant to help. Never let it get in the way of forward progress.