Now and then it is necessary to audit out the last session or an auditing session.
One does this by R-3-R but there is a slight change in wording when asking the pc to go earlier. One asks for an EARLIER SIMILAR INCIDENT. “Is there an earlier similar incident?” A session, when audited, does not always erase. Instead it has become part of a chain. Therefore one has to run R-3-R on it and get an earlier similar incident.
The chain may go back vast amounts of time.
Whereas the pc may only have been in Scientology 3 days, before Scientology there were other types of “sessions” such as psychoanalysis. And before that, in Rome and Greece, dream therapy in which one was “visited by a God”. And before that — well, the chain can have a very far back basic. One does not of course suggest ever what the earlier incident may be. There is no telling what the pc may confuse with a session.
If one asked the pc to “locate an earlier incident with a similar feeling” one would be on another chain entirely. Hence one asks, simply, “Is there an earlier similar incident?” when running a session out.
Running a session out has the liability that one is running a NARRATIVE CHAIN, a similar experience rather than a similar somatic.
One of the major 1969 breakthroughs was that chains are held together mainly by somatics. The body condition or somatic is what keeps the chain in association.
One can of course run “narrative incidents” by which one means similar EXPERIENCES. “Locate an earlier time your mother spanked you.” “Locate an earlier wreck.” These will run and sometimes even get to and erase a basic. BUT they are LONG and sometimes don’t ever get to basic at all and the chain may not erase. Running only narrative incidents is what made early Dianetics run up such fabulous numbers of hours in processing.
Somatic chains go quickly to basic and are the important chains.
Thus when we erase a chain of sessions we sometimes run into a very long chain. Sometimes the TA goes up to 4 or 5 (particularly if the auditor grinds). Using a wrong go-earlier command is a primary reason for trouble.
Usually if you ask simply for an earlier similar incident the pc goes back to something that will erase and the chain blows.
But remember, asking for similar types of experience can cause trouble in that it gets very long and basic may not appear for some time.
You can get away with running out sessions in most cases, enough to make it a worthwhile action. But only if you ask for “an earlier similar incident”. This phrase is a workhorse phrase of auditing anyway.
The best thing to do is goof no assessments or sessions in the first place.