In all the years of auditing, listing and assessing anything has been a weak spot in general auditing.

More goofy alterations can occur and more errors in this activity than any other.

In Standard Dianetics if you assess the wrong item or a wrongly worded item the case won’t run, the TA goes up or the TA goes down. HIGH TA (above 3.5) is a lot of mass coming in. LOW TA (below 2) is overwhelm.

Bad TRs can cause low TA as the auditor is overwhelming the pc. Too many times through without going earlier is the usual cause of these 4.5 to 5.5 TAs.

But both high and low TA are in some degree caused by not quite right assessment.

Pictures going off (pc gets a black or invisible field) is also caused by a wrong assessment.

The whole subject of assessment means PICK OUT THE THING THAT WILL RUN. That’s all one is trying to do.

As I have never had the faintest trouble listing and assessing anything or even finding the right somatic with no meter at all, it is hard for me to advise how to correct MISASSESSMENT or assessment errors. It just evades my reality. The whole subject is too easy. Just too awful easy.

So my belief is that students try to put too much into it. They try to get a pat-phrased question to ask like “What is the feeling?”

They stare (TR 0) at the pc when they should be looking at the meter. Try TR 0 on the meter!

An old operating definition of ASSESSMENT is:

ASSESSMENT IS DONE BY THE AUDITOR BETWEEN THE PC’S BANK AND THE METER. THERE IS NO NEED IN ASSESSING TO LOOK AT THE PC. JUST NOTE WHICH ITEM HAS THE LONGEST FALL OR BD. THE AUDITOR LOOKS AT THE METER WHILE DOING AN ASSESSMENT.

A clue to this is the continual misuse of the Azimuth meter. I keep finding them with paper pasted behind the dial. This shows they aren’t used right. One bends the stand peg to get it out of the way, and writes by looking at his pen through the glass. Then he never misses a read as the meter is between him and the item he is writing.

One is assessing for PAINS, SENSATIONS, UNWANTED EMOTIONS, ACHES. It can get so far out that the pc is made to say only feelings like “a going in feeling” and never even mention a pain.

There are so many signs and indicators that it is a wrong item when it is that I can’t see how it could be missed. On a wrong item the pc has bad indicators, the meter doesn’t read, there is no pc interest. Wow. It’s as obvious as a sinking ship.

On a right item the meter reads well when the pc says it, the pc’s good indicators come in somewhat when it’s announced, the pc is very interested in running it. It’s about as obvious as sky rockets.

So just given these two descriptions of the reaction to a wrong item and a right item I should think anybody could tell them.

Rote procedure gets heavily in the road of a Dianetic assessment. The pc gives a list, the auditor doesn’t watch the reads and note them, then the auditor commonly goes back to assess the list. By that time the charge is off. He should have watched the meter in the first place and taken that. Why all this assessing of the finished list. Of course when you already have a list done by another with no reads marked on it, you have to read it off and mark what reads. And using a list a second time you have to read it off to the pc to see what reads.

When a student demands a rote procedure for Dianetic assessment he is asking for trouble and is trying not to understand.

If the student simply understood that he was trying to find an item that read well, brought in moderate GIs and in which the pc was interested and which was usefully worded and which would run, he would have it made.

I get the feeling that Scientology listing gets all mixed up on a Dianetic Course. There are precision Scientology listing and nulling actions which must not be violated. These have NOTHING to do with Dianetics. Nothing!

A Standard Dianetics list can be so sloppily done it’s hard to believe. BUT the auditor has to watch the meter and be sure he has one with the pc’s interest, worded so as to run into an engram chain.

I’ve seen an incredibly botched up job as finding a somatic done this way. Pc listed, needle and TA all over the dial. Auditor picked out four somatics. Wrote them down and called them off. None read. The auditor then said the pc couldn’t be audited on Dianetics and should be sent for Scientology. Who is kidding who? The somatics read like mad. There was even one with a LFBD. Yet the auditor had to go into some goofy rote procedure or ritual and by it “discover” there were no somatics.

The errors in this operation of finding a somatic can be so corny and so idiotic that I have to assume the auditor doesn’t know or understand what he’s trying to do and doesn’t even look at the meter while he does it.

Honest, this action of finding the somatic to run is SO easy to do that only over-complication can block it.

The auditor wants to know what aches, pains, bad feelings, misemotions the pc complains of and out of these takes the one that reads best while the pc is saying it or it is being called off and which brings in the pc’s GIs moderately and in which the pc is interested. The somatic MUST read.

Now what’s so hard about that?

It requires one looks at his meter when the pc is giving it or it is being talked about.

There are no Scientology listing considerations in it.

Now and then the pc has a discreditable somatic and the auditor has to coax the pc to give all.

Now and then the pc says “My LUMBOSIS” and if you ran that or any medical term you’d only get him in doctors’ offices or in hospitals, as it’s a medical term, not a somatic.

Evidently the student gets in such a sweat about finding a “right item” that he goes up the spout on good sense.

In Scientology lists there’s only ONE item. On Dianetic lists there can be a dozen, for a Dianetic list isn’t really a list. It isn’t trying to isolate the mental troubles of the pc. A Dianetic list is simply the pc’s physical aches and pains. Golly, people are notorious for discussing their aches and pains. Why is it so hard to find one that reads well on a meter?

Well, you have to watch the meter.

That’s probably the outness. Students are so socially adjusted they keep looking at the pc, maybe even trying to look pleasant rather than trying to read a meter.

I feel, in trying to communicate and teach how to locate what to run, as if I am explaining where the floor is. And the people I’m explaining it to are wondering how you look at a floor, what chant you intone while looking at a floor and what mathematical equation you use to make sure it is the floor. It’s that kind of a thing. I say, “There’s the floor. If you stamp on it and it is there you will get a sound.” And guys think, “Well, maybe but how loud a sound and do you use the right foot or the left foot and if that’s the floor I can’t find the ceiling because I have no sextant.”

All I’m trying to tell you is that when you are looking for a somatic in the pc and hit it the meter reads well, the pc has moderate GIs when you tell him what it is you’ve chosen, he is interested and it will run.

And honest to Pete, that’s all there is to it. And if somebody says there’s anything else he’s trying to wreck a whole course and a lot of auditors.

I can’t say it any plainer.