Now and then an auditor encounters the phenomenon called (since 1950) GRINDING.

GRINDING means going over and over and over and over a lock, secondary or engram without obtaining an actual erasure.

The sense of the word comes from the action of using an emery wheel on a hard substance. The substance doesn’t get much smaller or thinner no matter how long it is done.

The reason grinding occurs is that the incident is too late on the chain. There are earlier incidents.

It is a highly undesirable action. A Dianetic Auditor who puts the pc through an incident four or five times without erasure or appreciable reduction is encountering “grinding”. He should ask the pc to see if there isn’t something earlier with a similar somatic.

We have encountered two cases who were “OT VI” who also got into grinding without there being anything earlier. In both these cases, they did not want a session and were only going through it to be obliging. Both of these “OTs” had skipped some of their grades. The proper action would have been to review their grades, the grade known as OT III was certainly out. When a person gets above Clear, oddities can be expected to occur when you try to run Dianetics on them. If they really haven’t made all their grades, however, and are physically ill, the correct action is to do all possible to handle their case by Standard Dianetics and then rehabilitate or get done all the rest of the grades. What has happened here is that they were using Scientology to escape an uncomfortable body that should have been straightened out by Dianetics in the first place. The “out grade” is in fact Dianetics, failure to use it before going on to Scientology.

You can therefore expect some of these Scientology cases who are “OT” but haven’t really made it due to out Dianetics, to run very well on Dianetics, by the book. The action is to handle their physical complaints with Dianetics and then rehab or get done all the Scientology grades, being watchful for grades not done at all.

Some of these “OT” flubs, however, can be expected to “grind” and to fail to erase engrams. They will not have wanted a session in the first place and need a green form with particular attention to “withholds” and thereafter a complete review of all grades, particularly completely skipped “OT grades”.

Possibly a pc who does not go down the somatic chain but who skips from one somatic to another could also get into grinding.

A pc not put through each incident on a chain twice before going earlier could get into grinding. The pc who is run through each incident once only before being sent earlier will certainly fail to get off enough charge to get earlier.

The pc who is stubbornly refusing to go into any past lives will certainly get into grinding as they seldom reach basic on any chain.