It is possible to get a floating needle and Very Good Indicators while simply spotting or dating an engram.

This does not often happen. But when it does happen it occasionally also causes trouble if the F/N is by-passed.

The criterion is to let the pc have his win.

A pc who gets

1. An F/N

2. A Cognition, and

3. Very Good Indicators

on an incident or chain has

A. Keyed it out (still there but not keyed in) or

B. Erased it by inspection or

C. Erased it by running the chain.

C is the case in by far the greatest percentage of pcs and sessions.

B is so rare that you won’t find it except on clears or persons who are nearly clear.

A (key-out) is rather common.

The auditor’s problem is to tell which it is. Really it isn’t much of a problem.

Almost all of the time C is the case. One just does Standard Dianetics — list, assessment, R3R, and you eventually get an erasure of the basic of the chain, with an F/N, VGIs and a cognition.

When a key-out occurs, you can get an F/N, GIs and possibly a cognition BUT THE INCIDENT THE PC WAS RUNNING HAD NO IMPACT OR INJURY IN IT. You can by-pass the F/N in Dianetics in this case and complete the chain. If you just leave it at that no damage is done BUT THE PC MAY KEY IN AGAIN EVEN BEFORE HE/SHE GETS TO THE EXAMINER. Even the somatic may come back. If so, just finish the chain. There’s no real damage done. But if it WAS an engram (contained pain and unconsciousness) and it erased and the auditor got an F/N, VGIs and a Cognition and tried to force the pc to go earlier you can get a very upset pc who has to be sent to Review for a Green Form.

When you get the very rare pc who, well advanced, actually blows an engram by inspection you will know it. Such a pc already audits very fast — hard to keep up admin-and is clear or near clear. The somatic, the lot simply goes. If you try to push the pc into running it, some sort of fire-fight may occur, a thing to be avoided.

If judgement of all this seems difficult, there’s a safe rule: “Let the pc have his win”.

And remember that a win consists of

1. An F/N

2. A Cognition and

3. VGIs.

The main liability of pushing a pc past a win is that he may “jump chains” and begin on another chain with no assessment. This gets him into trouble.

If, in A above, you left it as a keyed-out lock, the pc will simply get the same symptoms again sooner or later.

You are dealing with an exact activity in Standard Dianetics. It has no “special cases” or “exceptions”. The procedure is the procedure and it is the procedure that gets the wins.

This matter of key-out or erasure is the only area of the subject where judgement comes into play. And even that can be shirked by letting the pc have his or her win.