The auditor is both a technician and an artist.

We still have art in processing, but thank God we don’t need as much as we used to. The more and better technique an auditor has at his command, the less he has to be an artist. But some auditors persist in being very “artistic” about some little corner of this science while ignoring the rest. A real artist is not above using his technique. A real artist has many techniques to use.

Compare, for example, Rembrandt and the dilettante. The dilettante does not know how to paint, so most of his energy goes into selecting the “right” brush or the “apt” line or the “perfect” pigment. Rembrandt does know how to paint. He picks up the first brush that comes to hand, touches it to the palette and — wham! A color.

Rembrandt can be an artist, because he has a lot of technique with which to be an artist.

The dilettante has no technique, and so he only plays the role of the artist.

There is a standard way to run an engram. There is a standard way to diagnose a case. There is a standard technique to use for every level of the tone scale.

On the wide-open case, you can run Responsibility. Times when he took responsibility. Times when he shifted responsibility to others.

On a case in which you cannot find the first engram, you can use Technique 80: motivators, overts, DEDs, DEDEXes.

Dianetics, Science of Survival, Self Analysis, Advanced Procedure and Axioms, Handbook for Preclears, Technique 88—each is applicable to a case at a certain level. There is not one of them that does not apply somewhere. The wide-open case will need first-book procedure until he gets out of the incident he is stuck in. Then he will need rehabilitation in A-R-C, agreeing and disagreeing with affinity, reality, and communication flows between him and the environment. The occluded case will need later techniques.

These are the tools of the trade. They are graduated against the level of the case.

They are just as solid and usable as the tools in a plumber’s box.

When you start to audit, know these tools. After you know them, you can be as artistic as you want about using them, because then you will have the techniques to be artistic with, and you won’t have to use a gallon of art to every eye-dropper of technique.