How long does auditing take?

[Student of Trinity]

This is a simple and concrete question, but it's a bit odd that I haven't seen the answer before now. How long does a PC sit holding the cans, at one stretch?

It has always seemed strange to me that auditing is apparently sold in 'intensive' blocks of 12.5 hours. That's a weird length of time, and it's a rather long length of time. I sure wouldn't want to spend more than twelve hours straight answering questions while someone looked at my e-meter. I can't believe it really works that way.

So if I bought an 'intensive', how would those 12.5 hours get spent? 2.5 hours per day for a 5-day week? But I've often seen people talk of the dangers of 'overrunning' Scientology processes, so I expect that an auditor won't always take a fixed amount of time, but will instead end the session whenever seems scientologically appropriate. If I have a really fast session and it's over in half an hour, do I still have 12 more hours of my intensive left? Or does that count as having used up 2.5 hours, or something?

How many hours of auditing is a PC supposed to do in a day, assuming an unlimited budget? Are days off suggested? What about auditors? How long do they spend in the chair at a stretch? How many PCs are they supposed to audit in a day? Are they supposed to have days off?

 

[Dulloldfart]

This is a simple and concrete question, but it's a bit odd that I haven't seen the answer before now. How long does a PC sit holding the cans, at one stretch?

It has always seemed strange to me that auditing is apparently sold in 'intensive' blocks of 12.5 hours. That's a weird length of time, and it's a rather long length of time. I sure wouldn't want to spend more than twelve hours straight answering questions while someone looked at my e-meter. I can't believe it really works that way.

So if I bought an 'intensive', how would those 12.5 hours get spent? 2.5 hours per day for a 5-day week? But I've often seen people talk of the dangers of 'overrunning' Scientology processes, so I expect that an auditor won't always take a fixed amount of time, but will instead end the session whenever seems scientologically appropriate. If I have a really fast session and it's over in half an hour, do I still have 12 more hours of my intensive left? Or does that count as having used up 2.5 hours, or something?

How many hours of auditing is a PC supposed to do in a day, assuming an unlimited budget? Are days off suggested? What about auditors? How long do they spend in the chair at a stretch? How many PCs are they supposed to audit in a day? Are they supposed to have days off?

It varies. The first idea was to deliver a 25 hours block of auditing intensively, 5 hours a day for 5 days, so that the person could take a week off work and then be done. This 25 hours was sold as a unit, one intensive (noun). Later, this got reduced to 2 1/2 hours a day, and the intensive (noun) was 12 1/2 hours, delivered in one week.

At the time it was possible to deliver a 2 1/2 hour session. A trained auditor would have no trouble at all auditing for 2 1/2 hours straight, and most pcs could stand up to it. In the early-mid 70s sessions would often run to several hours, especially on Standard Dianetics. A session would not run by the clock then, but one would try to finish off a "chain" that one had started, which could run for hours and hours.

In the late 70s, the tech got improved, and it was often not possible for a pc to stay in session for that long. What happens is that the pc gets "blown out," basically so extroverted that he is no longer interested in looking at his unpleasant mental images and just wants to get on with life or go wow wow wow or whatever. If the auditor insists on continuing it just doesn't work out at all. So the auditor might be all set up to do a 2 1/2 hour session but the pc blows out after 20 minutes and that's it. Hopefully there is another pc in the waiting room and the auditor can go back into session. Maybe the first pc will be ready for another session later that day.

NOTs sessions can run a few minutes only. Around 1980 I was the "(scheduling) Board In-Charge" for the NOTs Division at Saint Hill, and it was my job to have enough pcs in the NOTs waiting room for the 4 or 5 NOTs auditors. They would run on a "leapfrog" system, like A-B-C-A-B-C-A etc. throughout the day, although sometimes a pc would have a big win and that would be it for the day or week or month.

An org auditor is supposed to audit at least 25 hours a week, or he gets no pay at all. Top auditors would audit maybe 40 hours a week average in a year, which is *hard work*!

Holidays? Hah! Same as staff members generally. But a non-CofS auditor can take holidays like anyone else.

Number of pcs per auditor? Ideally, it revolves around the pc, so each pc gets as much auditing as he wants as fast as he wants. Practically, this isn't going to happen. There can be auditors but no paying pcs available; there can be paying pcs and no auditors available. And anything in between.

Paul

 

[Student of Trinity]

Ha; thanks, Paul.

Very interesting that there was such a dramatic change in auditing in the late 70's. No matter what one may think about auditing, the change you describe sounds like an objective phenomenon. If pcs used to sit still for hours on end, but then suddenly began to get too excited to continue after much less time than that, then I don't think you have to believe that 'the tech works' to acknowledge that something has happened.

What was it, would you say? Any one thing?

 

[Dulloldfart]

Ha; thanks, Paul.

Very interesting that there was such a dramatic change in auditing in the late 70's. No matter what one may think about auditing, the change you describe sounds like an objective phenomenon. If pcs used to sit still for hours on end, but then suddenly began to get too excited to continue after much less time than that, then I don't think you have to believe that 'the tech works' to acknowledge that something has happened.

What was it, would you say? Any one thing?

A huge change was the replacement of Standard Dianetics by New Era Dianetics (1978). Personally I had several hundred hours of Standard Dianetics auditing in 1973-5. Sessions of 4 or 5 hours length were not uncommon. The same could have been accomplished with maybe 30 hours of NED auditing, as it is much more precise.

Someone who was auditing at that time could give a better idea with regard to the Grades. The tech got tidied up a bit in 1978 (-ish), but I don't think there was anything like a comparable increase in speed, i.e. pcs blowing out and unable to last for a couple of hours.

NOTs (1979) was something else. It was definitely new that the session was expected to last minutes rather than hours.

Paul

 

[Student of Trinity]

Wow.

But what were the differences? Different kinds of questions asked? Different voltage on the e-meter (not an answer I expect is likely — I'm skeptical about psychological effects of e-meter currents)?

Here is where it could be really interesting to examine Scientology 'tech' from an independent perspective, and see what explanations there might be, other than the ones Scientology offers, for the drastically different effects of processes that were different, but presumably related. If one is curious, as I am, about what the real 'active ingredients' in auditing are, then comparing different forms of auditing would be a fantastic way to learn more.

If the only explanations that hold up are Scientology reasons, well, closer study from an unbiased perspective shouldn't alter this conclusion. But if anything else should happen to stand out as an obvious smoking gun, then I would think that anyone interested in the truth would want to know this.

 

[Dulloldfart]

If pcs used to sit still for hours on end, but then suddenly began to get too excited to continue after much less time than that <snip>

Sorry if I gave the impression that the session couldn't continue because of over-excitement. It's often more a feeling of calm expansion, a pervasive serenity, like one would get from a peaceful quiet meditation. Except it often occurs suddenly, rather than gradually creeping up on one. One minute you're just going along merrily answering questions, the next minute it's like you've been thrown off a cliff (although it's more being up a cliff than down a cliff).

Paul

 

[Student of Trinity]

Huh; okay. Good to know.

I don't want to keep pestering you about exactly how NED differed from original Dianetics, Paul, but I'm thinking that you personally might be one of few sources for this information. Of those who've seen both, many have probably just forgotten about the older forms of auditing, because they were obsolete. I'm not sure how many of the remainder would be interested but unbiased, whereas your take on this stuff seems pragmatic enough to me that I'd accept your account as accurate.

 

[Panda Termint]

Good answers, Paul, I concur.

 

[Dulloldfart]

Wow.

But what were the differences? Different kinds of questions asked? Different voltage on the e-meter (not an answer I expect is likely — I'm skeptical about psychological effects of e-meter currents)?

Here is where it could be really interesting to examine Scientology 'tech' from an independent perspective, and see what explanations there might be, other than the ones Scientology offers, for the drastically different effects of processes that were different, but presumably related. If one is curious, as I am, about what the real 'active ingredients' in auditing are, then comparing different forms of auditing would be a fantastic way to learn more.

If the only explanations that hold up are Scientology reasons, well, closer study from an unbiased perspective shouldn't alter this conclusion. But if anything else should happen to stand out as an obvious smoking gun, then I would think that anyone interested in the truth would want to know this.

The differences were in the procedures. No voltage shift in the meter. A one-minute summary of the differences between Std Dn and NED? Ummmmmm. At least I did the NED Course back then, although I had never done the earlier Dianetics Course. A better person to answer this question would be someone who audited extensively both kinds of metered Dianetics, Std and NED. My answer will be somewhat theoretical. I did audit some NED, but not much. I never received any.

I hope you know at least something about how auditing takes place.

From memory, here goes. . . .

Let's say the pc has said he has trouble with a leg. He broke it years ago, and the bone supposedly healed OK per the X-rays, but he still has problems with it. He tells the auditor he has a "bad leg." His statement of it gets a (meter) read on "bad leg." In Std Dn the auditor would ask for AESPs: "What attitudes, emotions, sensations or pains are connected with 'a bad leg'?" The pc would then list them out, and the auditor would write them down and note any meter read accompanying the pc's statement of the item. For example:

A sharp pain in the knee F
A feeling of hopelessness sF
A nagging pain in the calf x
The feeling that I want to kill myself LF
etc.

There might be a dozen or more of them. The auditor would take the item with the biggest read (x = no read; sF = small fall, 1/4 to 1/2"; F = fall, 1-2"; LF = long fall, 2-4". Yes I know there's no obvious mark for 3/4": the idea of this notation is to measure comparative length of reads, not absolute length. I didn't invent the system!)

Let's say the suicidal one is the biggest. The auditor would ask if the pc is intereted in running the item, "A time you had the feeling 'I want to kill myself'." If yes, they then run the chain starting with the command "Locate a time you had the feeling 'I want to kill myself'." This might run for hours, running a dozen incidents that go back a hundred trillion years [sic]. Then, maybe next session, they would run (if it reads and the pc is interested) "Locate a time you caused another to have the feeling 'I want to kill myself'". And the other two flows (others to others and self to self).

When all the items (those pc statements with reads) have been run, the auditor would check for more. The pc may find some more now. These would also be run. Hopefully the pc's leg wouldn't be causing him so much trouble now.

In NED, the items like "a bad leg F" would be noted in the same way. But instead of the AESPs question, the auditor would do a "pre-assessment" from a list of 15 items. The exact list is shown at the link below; you need to click twice more on Level 5 and Pre-assessment list (bottom right corner of the Level 5 items). Let's say the biggest read is on "Are pressures connected with 'a bad leg'?" The auditor would then ask, "What pressures are connected with 'a bad leg'?" The pressures would then be listed by the pc, with the auditor marking the reads or no-reads for each one, then they would run the biggest reading one as before.

This procedure narrows in on the area more than the prior Std Dn one does. I assume this is what reduces the time, but again that is a theoretical idea from me, not an experiential one.

The entire procedure is shown by Clearbird, mirrored at several sites. This is one: http://www.sgmt.at/ClearbirdE2010/Clearbird2004/FrameSearch.html. Click on Level 5 from the menu along the top. I can't give you a more precise link.

Hope this helps.

Paul

 

[Pierrot]

The differences were in the procedures.

(snip)

This procedure narrows in on the area more than the prior Std Dn one does. I assume this is what reduces the time, but again that is a theoretical idea from me, not an experiential one.

The entire procedure is shown by Clearbird, mirrored at several sites. This is one: http://www.sgmt.at/ClearbirdE2010/Clearbird2004/FrameSearch.html. Click on Level 5 from the menu along the top. I can't give you a more precise link.

Hope this helps.

Paul

Good write-up.

What reduces the time - mainly the rule that whenever the TA goes up on the incident and/or pc says when asked that incident instead of erasing goes more solid => on NED the auditor asks for earlier similar incident of "___(item being handled)____" straight away.

Thus - instead of "grinding", erasing/reducing incidents on a chain, one aims straight at the (earliest similar) basic. Thus the process goes faster.

On NED for OTs one aims straight at the basic source of what is being adressed - that goes even faster.

 

[Student of Trinity]

Fascinating. It looks as though the newer procedures offer a lot more guidance to the PC, as to what to focus on, rather than a long and rather aimless exploration of past lives. There would seem to be a lot more cueing — clearly not enough to totally predetermine the PC response, but enough to give the PC a lot of material to go on, instead of having to come up with it all themselves. Conversely, the effort to bypass intermediate incidents in favor of reaching the basic incident faster would seem to mean that one first settles on the basic outline of the story to be considered, before going through it in detail.

From this I can already make a totally off-the-cuff hypothesis. It should definitely not be taken seriously! Off-the-cuff hypotheses are worth very little. But it can indicate the kind of understanding that detailed study of this stuff might provide — if that detailed study should happen to give substantial support to a hypothesis of this kind.

[Off-the-cuff hypothesis]
People really like stories. This isn't just a slight preference: to a large degree, human consciousness is essentially about turning reality into a story. Maybe it's an instinct at the level of sex and survival. So we feel much better about anything if we can fit it into a coherent narrative. That makes it seem manageable in size, and it convinces us that it could be changed, because in stories, things change. So the hypothesis is that a lot of the happy calm induced by auditing is the instinctive relief in having turned something big and scary into a story.

Making good stories is hard. Few people can do it from whole cloth, starting from a blank page. But a lot of people can compose a decent story from a palette of stock elements. Ergo, giving people more lists of specific elements tends to get them to an effective narrative more quickly.

People don't necessarily construct the best story on the first attempt, either. If you let them sketch something out, then reject the sketch and try another one, they'll come up with a good story sooner than if you force them to flesh out every attempt as it comes.
[/Off-the-cuff hypothesis]

Okay, that might not be it at all. But it might be worth further investigation. I kind of wish I had a psychology grad student to put onto this. Alas, I'm in the wrong department.

 

[RogerB]

Yep, Paul is correct as usual.

However, there is an earlier version of what he is referring to

When this notion of "buying an intensive" block of auditing was really in vogue (it began even in Dianetics days before $cn came into being) was in the days before we had any grade chart, no correction list, and most sessions were delivered without an e-meter.

This in the period of the 1950's up to about 1961.

If you go to the R/Ds in the book Creation of Human Ability, for example, it was all done without a meter and run to various version of "flat."

In around 1959 the big item for auditing was the "objective processes": CCHs, SCS, and Opening Procedure by Duplication. This last process (Opie-Dupe) was indeed run on all HPA/HCA students in 1959-60 for eight straight hours with only necessary breaks for toilet and food.

CCHs were run till there was no further change in the PC . . . . this of course was in error as in those days we did not know about "over-run" . . . and weren't smart enough to know we should end off the process on a huge win/ability regained. etc.

I well remember in around September 1963 asking the then Melbourne org ED (recent returned SHSBC Grad) "How do we know when the process is flat?" . . . .I was inquiring about the newly released 3SC which was the '63 version of Service Facsimile handling. (The phony bastard couldn't answer the question and accused me of being "trouble.")

The point is that at that time we didn't have the tech on "end phenomena."

So, SofT, to answer your question in terms of present processing, a session can run for hours or even less than a minute . . . it depends on what is being addressed and what R/D is being used.

The ideal scenario is to end off the auditing action when the PC recovers his/her cause over the area being addressed, or has a big realization or ability regained or freedom from what has been negatively affecting him/her.

It takes skilled processing to get it right, and a well educated PC really helps make it easier.

Rog

 

[koki]

tnx Paul,
but what if Pc starts to tell "lies",and auditor somehow miss that and just keep on....?
big hello from LRHs Bulgraviya.

 

[koki]

I love when "old"( in scientology) people answer questions to us.....
I really need answer- what about this guy... is he inventing "lies" or auditor can see that? or not?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKTveC__FMs

P.S. very good thread,
big hello from LRHs Bulgraviya.

 

[Student of Trinity]

From what Roger says, and a lot of things other people have said earlier, I definitely get the impression that auditing is at least as much of an art as a science. Being audited, for that matter, would also appear to be something of a learned skill.

Which is fine, and to be expected for any kind of therapy, I would say. Whatever he may or may not have actually had to offer in the way of 'workable tech', it was absurd of Hubbard to pretend to have a body of procedures that would be 100% effective if applied with algorithmic exactness. That ridiculous pretense is surely one of the purely bad and evil aspects of Hubbard's con game, because it just puts all the blame for anything short of perfection on the participants.

But I can make this curious personal observation. The more concrete and literal details I hear about Scientology practice, the less I believe in Hubbard's grandiose claims for it — but the more I'm willing to believe that there might be some stuff of some value in it. For my own part I'm afraid I remain doubtful that there's enough there to constitute a way of life or a religion, but I guess by now I consider it quite possible that there might be some worthwhile psychological tricks and techniques, that somebody who held L. Ron Hubbard in no kind of awe whatever could perhaps disentangle and develop into a useful practice.

Valium has been a hugely successful product, and all it really does is help nervous people relax a little. Alcohol has been far more popular still, though its effects are simple and the beneficial ones are modest. Even something that achieves rather less than those drugs would be a thing well worth having, if it didn't wreck your liver — or drain your savings and turn you into a brainwashed culty.

My own expectation would certainly be that none of Hubbard's voodoo psychophysics would survive as the theoretical underpinning for whatever effective post-Scientology practices might emerge. I'd expect that the whole past-life hypothesis could be jettisoned, for instance. I'd see those notions being replaced, not necessarily with my off-the-cuff 'story instinct' hypothesis, but probably with something comparably banal and down-to-earth.

 

[Smilla]

Auditing takes exactly as long as it takes to extract all your money from you, plus the time it takes for you to run up as much debt as lenders will extend to you.

 

[TG1]

SoT, re your hypothesis ...

As someone with considerable experience on both sides of the cans (as a Dianetic auditor and pc), IMHO ...

I don’t think it's "stories" or any particular verbage or even words at all that produce the blow-out, key-out, release or end phenomenon.

Nor is it it necessarily any specific images or other sensory memories of past "events" that the pc experiences mentally.

It's also not about whether those events are the pc's or others' or imagined or pretended or those of a collective unconscious or the result of a hypnotic trance or any other way one could hypothesize those events/images might arise in the pc's consciousness and become part of the session.

When Dianetic auditing "works" (and in my experience, it usually "works" in producing the kinds of results Paul described above), the release occurs unexpectedly and not necessarily at the "plot point" or arc in the narrative one would objectively expect something dramatic to occur. Sometimes quite minor elements of the event (or even nothing at all) seems to trigger a release.

It usually is not difficult to recognize this release. Or at least it wasn't pre-GAT (Golden Era of Technology), which I didn't experience, since I was long gone by then.

It is only after this release that the pc may deliver a "cognition," typically an epiphany or personal conclusion about themselves or life in general, along the lines of, "Ah, I now realize that ...." or "That's why I ...." or even non-verbal or general expressions of relief or amazement or .

This is redundant, but the "end phenomenon" of most auditing procedures on a pc includes three elements: (1) a floating needle (the auditor must never audit the pc on the same process or question past a floating needle), (2) a pc cognition (which is volunteered, never “dug for” by the auditor) and (3) very good indicators, e.g., pc looks bright, happy, relieved, peaceful, smiling, etc.

Then there's Scientology auditing -- which is different from Dianetic auditing. Some Scientology auditing does address the pc's past, but some does not. For example, some Scientology auditing (called "creative" processing) has the auditor guide the pc in imagining or mentally playing with forces or other elements.

It's been a long time since I've considered any of this stuff. I may have some of it wrong. And others may see it differently.

I always took quite an empirical view of auditing. I had early questions (as I think most people did) about whether whatever other pcs and I were contacting or viewing in session was real or ours or otherwise. After benefitting from the auditing, I decided to go with the flow -- if it worked and helped I would keep going; if it didn't I would stop.

Eventually, after I hit the upper levels, it wasn’t helpful. And I stopped.

Scientologists’ and ex-Scientologists’ present and past views of the effectiveness of “the tech” are titrated using complex solutions of our personal experiences as auditors, pcs, staff members, public – and what we observed happening by and to others inside Scientology. Those experiences are vastly different, depending on when and where and with whom and for how long we explored and experienced Scientology.

And, of course, our experiences pre- and post-Scientology and psychological make-ups also affect greatly our views of Scientology. The many online discussions about Scientology continue to help me titrate my views.

TG1

 

[Dulloldfart]

tnx Paul,
but what if Pc starts to tell "lies",and auditor somehow miss that and just keep on....?
big hello from LRHs Bulgraviya.

Scientology auditing (per C/S Series 6) is aimed at discharging "mass" or energy, which is (supposedly) measured by the amount of tone arm action seen on the meter. The pc would experience this in various ways of feeling lighter. In a mediocre session the pc might not feel much different. In a bad session he might even feel worse.

What the pc *says* is by comparison largely irrelevant, beyond the mechanism involved of sometimes feeling better if one tells another something distressing, or getting item details for auditing actions. If he had a traumatic experience in a war seeing his buddies blown to bits, there could well be a huge amount of misemotion and anguish to be discharged, even if there was no personal physical pain involved. The auditor doesn't care if the main charge was really accumulated in 1805 and the pc thinks it was 2005. Or vice versa. As long as the charge comes off and the pc experiences the relief.

Doing a sec check to get the details of the pc's role in the org fire last week is different, and the auditor would try and be very careful as to the truth of the matter. But general case running where *it doesn't matter*? Pfft.

One unfortunate result of this is the pc can be left with the idea that what he has been running is *true*, especially if it aligns with stuff Hubbard has suggested in his tapes or writings. Hence all the space opera twaddle trillions of years ago.

Paul

 

[koki]

Scientology auditing (per C/S Series 6) is aimed at discharging "mass" or energy, which is (supposedly) measured by the amount of tone arm action seen on the meter. The pc would experience this in various ways of feeling lighter. In a mediocre session the pc might not feel much different. In a bad session he might even feel worse.

What the pc *says* is by comparison largely irrelevant, beyond the mechanism involved of sometimes feeling better if one tells another something distressing, or getting item details for auditing actions. If he had a traumatic experience in a war seeing his buddies blown to bits, there could well be a huge amount of misemotion and anguish to be discharged, even if there was no personal physical pain involved. The auditor doesn't care if the main charge was really accumulated in 1805 and the pc thinks it was 2005. Or vice versa. As long as the charge comes off and the pc experiences the relief.

Doing a sec check to get the details of the pc's role in the org fire last week is different, and the auditor would try and be very careful as to the truth of the matter. But general case running where *it doesn't matter*? Pfft.

One unfortunate result of this is the pc can be left with the idea that what he has been running is *true*, especially if it aligns with stuff Hubbard has suggested in his tapes or writings. Hence all the space opera twaddle trillions of years ago.

Paul

I just wanted to ask this :
I am from Croatia and we had a war here maybe 20 years ago...my city was first front line. In time of really bad attacks on our city (wich have 125 000 people - later in worst times only 5 000) we use to know everyone who is still in city.... but now after 20 years I see that people -who were in exodus somewhere - telling story's about being on front line- and I am sure they totally believe it-and I see in they eyes they even "feel" it....(just because they were listening story's for 10 years and they somehow "learn" them or "re-live" through them)
so my question: if person have that kind of mental problems already and "incident" like that( other people story's which one listen seance young age and start to believe it) only make them worse,and auditing goes and goes for weeks or months,and PC just cant find "that moment".... what is happening then? and auditor just help make him feel even worse (or go deeper in schizophrenia...)...
i hope you understand my question,and BIG THANK YOU ALL for answering this kind of question....

Big hello from LRHs Bulgraviya.

P.S. I read your last paragraph but I hope it is not answer....
it looks like- oooo f.ck,sorry ...... I mean that means that it works only if one ...................... this is ...........
tnx anyway....

 

[uniquemand]

You don't need a meter for that. Just ask if it is getting lighter or heavier. Heavier, go earlier, lighter, keep charging.

Most people I've worked with run somewhere around 90 mins on chains of incidents in the beginning, and start to move quicker as they finish handling a few items. With grades type procedures, it is usually shorter. I only pick up a new procedure if the person remains interested in handling something else. Most people don't want to. I am always willing to work on my next item, unless I can't find anything else, right then. The guy who worked with me, last, worked me about5-7 hours a day for 85 hours, until I realized I needed to get back to living, and had handled everything accessible at that time.