It has come to my attention that auditors in some instances have found a new way of not getting their auditing question answered on Clay Table work.

They don’t get the pc to represent the meaning of the word but let the pc do something in clay vaguely similar to the word.

Example of wrong action: Auditor has found the word “Alchemy” has been misunderstood. Says, “Represent Alchemy.” Pc then does in Clay a retort and a man in a conical hat. Auditor says, “Okay.” This is a goof.

In fact two goofs may be present. If the pc had really not understood “Alchemy” his answer in Clay would have been a more searching one. The auditor may have gotten five or six words from the pc and selected one that had no reaction and in which the pc was not interested. For a pc to be so glib means the pc isn’t even puzzled about it and the auditor isn’t auditing an aberration (a held-down 5) at all. (See Dianetics Evolution of a Science and my lecture this year on the definition of Clear, without understanding which nobody is going to clear anybody anyway.)

There may even be a third goof. The auditor has no grasp at all of what constitutes Clay Table Clearing or why it works and hasn’t got the idea he is clarifying meanings and clearing up puzzles the pc has.

The actual goof is that the pc did not represent the word.

Represent means, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: “to bring into presence; to bring clearly and distinctly before the mind; to place clearly before another.”

This even shows up yet another goof. The auditor had no clearer idea of “Alchemy” than before and so was a sort of disinterested party to the whole thing and, on investigation, would have been found to pay no heed habitually to pc origins. Therefore the auditor was weak on TR 2 and a catastrophe on TR 4.

But getting back to the main goof, pc really not representing the word, therefore not answering the auditing command, is obvious in that no clearer or more distinct understanding of the word emerged.

The pc, then, didn’t answer the “What word or term haven’t you understood in that subject?” and gave a term he really already knew, or the auditor didn’t accept the right one out of several offered, leaving in fact the pc’s answer unacknowledged.

Then when the auditor gave the second command, “Represent Alchemy,” one auditing cycle had already been missed as above and so represent was not done either.

If an auditor runs into the trouble of a pc just doodling in Clay with no clarification of anything, then one of the following is at fault:

(a) The auditor accepted a subject the pc didn’t want to improve at all; or

(b) The auditor accepted a “misunderstood word” which the pc had never misunderstood; or

(c) The auditor didn’t get even earlier commands answered on the pc and so had a sloppy comm cycle going already; or

(d) The auditor had no idea of what Clay Table Clearing was all about; or

(e) The auditor was auditing far above the pc’s level and should have been working out of the Book of Remedies rather than Clay Table Clearing; or

(f) The auditor was continuing to audit an already ARC broken pc; or

(g) The pc hadn’t enough grasp of the meaning of the word chosen to even start; or

(h) The pc hadn’t a clue what “represent” means.

Resolutions of (a) to (f) are pretty obvious to any trained auditor. But they are resolved as follows:

(a) Get the pc in comm as pc obviously not willing to talk about personal affairs or himself to the auditor. This is the oldest “In Session” definition. “What are you willing to talk to me about?” is the commonest remedy.

(b) Same as (a) or the auditor is just willfully choosing the wrong word out of suggestions the pc makes in which case O/W on pcs is indicated on the auditor.

(c) Pc or auditor madly out of comm with the other and the reason should be found and remedied.

(d) The auditor should review Dianetics Evolution of a Science and have a Star-Rated examination on as well as a demonstration by the auditor of the definitions and principles of the lecture on Clearing of this year, before being permitted to do any more CT work.

(e) The pc long since should have been looked up in the Book of Remedies and the remedy applied for the pc’s condition or case before ever adventuring upon routine auditing such as Clay Table Clearing.

(f) An ARC Break Assessment should have been done if this was what was wrong.

(g) The pc should be given a dictionary to look the term up in before representing it in Clay.

(h) The pc should be oriented or trained as to what is expected of him in Clay Table auditing including the meaning of represent.

Also, to add a somewhat unusual solution, the command “Represent Alchemy” should be lengthened to “Represent the meaning of the word Alchemy in Clay.”

The more I see of Clay Table goofs the more impressed I am with the wisdom of keeping Clay Table Clearing at Level IV. Because the main goofs are all auditing cycle goofs. The silly ones — such as the auditor never has passed Itsa but has always only done TR 0 when asked to do so, this auditor has never listened to the pc — such as gummed up TR 1 — such as the auditor acknowledging the pc before he has a clue what the pc said or did — such as the auditor wandering off the course of the session, Q and Aing and just not duplicating the auditing command — such as failing to handle pc originations.

Clay Table work separates the experts and amateurs like a gourmet would separate sour wine and champagne.

With sour basic auditing, it just doesn’t satisfy what’s required.

I think letting students putter about with Clay even on Scientology definitions before they are Class Is at least is a horrible mistake.

Every consistently done Clay Table goofing I’ve seen so far showed up an auditor who just didn’t know his auditing cycle and couldn’t get that done, much less CT Clearing.

CT Clearing not only can be done. It Clears. If done.