An instant read is defined as that reaction of the needle which occurs at the precise end of any major thought voiced by the auditor.

The reaction of the needle may be any reaction except "nul". An instant read may be any change of characteristic providing it occurs instantly. The absence of a read at the end of the major thought shows it to be nul.

All prior reads and latent reads are ignored. These are the result of minor thoughts which may or may not be restimulated by the question.

Only the instant read is used by the auditor. Only the instant read is cleared on rudiments, What questions, etc.

The instant read may consist of any needle reaction, rise, fall, speeded rise, speeded fall, double tick (dirty needle), theta bop or any other action so long as it occurs at the exact end of the major thought being expressed by the auditor. If no reaction occurs at exactly that place (the end of the major thought) the question is nul.

By "major thought" is meant the complete thought being expressed in words by the auditor. Reads which occur prior to the completion of the major thought are "prior reads". Reads which occur later than its completion are "latent reads".

By "minor thought" is meant subsidiary thoughts expressed by words within the major thought. They are caused by the reactivity of individual words within the full words. They are ignored.

Example: "Have you ever injured dirty pigs?"

To the pc the words "you", "injured" and "dirty" are all reactive. Therefore, the minor thoughts expressed by these words also read on the meter.

The major thought here is the whole sentence. Within this thought are the minor thoughts "you", "injured" and "dirty".

Therefore the E-Meter needle may respond this way: "Have you (fall) ever injured (speeded fall) dirty (fall) pigs (Fall)?"

Only the major thought gives the instant read and only the last fall (bold-italic type in the sentence above) indicates anything. If that last reaction was absent, the whole sentence is nul despite the prior falls.

You can release the reactions (but ordinarily would not) on each of these minor thoughts. Exploring these prior reads is called "compartmenting the question".

Paying attention to minor thought reads gives us laughable situations as in the case, written in 1960, of "getting P. D. H. ed by the cat". By accepting these prior reads one can prove anything. Why? Because Pain and Drug and Hypnosis are minor thoughts within the major thought: "Have you ever been P. D. H. ed by a cat?" The inexpert auditor would believe such a silly thing had happened. But notice that if each minor thought is cleaned out of the major thought it no longer reacts as a whole fact. If the person on the meter had been P. D. H. ed by a cat, then only the discovery of the origin of the whole thought would clean up the whole thought.

Pcs also think about other things while being asked questions and these random personal restimulations also read before and after an instant read and are ignored. Very rarely, a pc's thinks react exactly at the end of a major thought and so confuse the issue, but this is rare.

We want the read that occurs instantly after the last syllable of the major thought without lag. That is the only read we regard in finding a rudiment in or out, to find if a goal reacts, etc. That is what is called an "instant read".

There is a package rudiment question in the half truth, etc. We are doing four rudiments in one and therefore have four major thoughts in one sentence. This packaging is the only apparent exception but is actually no exception. It's just a fast way of doing four rudiments in one sentence.

A clumsy question which puts "in this session" at the end of the major thought can serve the auditor badly. Such modifiers should come before the sentence, "In this session have you……?"

You are giving the major thought directly to the reactive mind. Therefore any analytical thought will not react instantly.

The reactive mind is composed of:

1. Timelessness.

2. Unknownness.

3. Survival.

The meter reacts on the reactive mind, never on the analytical mind. The meter reacts instantly on any thought restimulated in the reactive mind.

If the meter reacts on anything, that datum is partly or wholly unknown to the preclear.

An auditor's questions restimulate the reactive mind. This reacts on the meter.

Only reactive thoughts react instantly.

You can "groove in" a major thought by saying it twice. On the second time (or third time if it is longer) you will see only the instant read at the exact end. If you do this the prior reads drop out leaving only the whole thought.

If you go stumbling around in rudiments or goals trying to clean up the minor thoughts you will get lost. In sec checking you can uncover material by "compartmenting the question" but this is rarely done today. In rudiments, What questions, et al, you want the instant read only. It occurs exactly at the end of the whole thought. This is your whole interest in cleaning a rudiment or a What question. You ignore all prior and latent reactions of the needle.

The exceptions to this rule are:

1. "Compartmenting the question", in which you use the prior reads occurring at the exact end of the minor thoughts (as above in the pigs sentence) to dig up different data not related to the whole thought.

2. "Steering the pc" is the only use of latent or random reads. You see a read the same as the instant read occurring again when you are not speaking but after you have found a whole thought reacting. You say "there" or "that" and the pc, seeing what he or she is looking at as you say it, recovers the knowledge from the reactive bank and gives the data and the whole thought clears or has to be further worked and cleared.

You can easily figure-figure yourself half to death trying to grapple with meter reads unless you get a good reality on the instant read which occurs at the end of the whole expressed thought and neglect all prior and latent reads except for steering the pc while he gropes for the answer to the question you asked.

That's the whole of reading an E-Meter needle.

(Two Saint Hill lectures of 24 May 1962 cover this in full.)

[HCO B 21 July 1962, Instant Reads, adds to this HCO B.]