Before I would permit you to believe that the overt-withhold mechanism was a total way of life, I would point out that it applies only to a strata of existence and that it stems from failures to help.

The theory that what you do to others will then happen to you is a punishment control mechanism peculiar to this universe. It derives from a deteriorated willingness to duplicate. It is the law of physics of Interaction — for every action there is an equal and contrary reaction.

“Love thy neighbour”, when it is no longer a willingness, is enforced by the theory of O-W. “Love thy neighbour” can exist only when help, control and communication are high. When all these go, then O-W comes into vogue as a method of enforcing peace.

O-W is a theory which sets in when aberration sets in. It is not a high natural law. It is junior to the various laws of Communication, Control and Help.

O-W can occur only when help has failed. Help is a co-joining of vectors of life. When two beings who have joined forces to help fail each other, only then does O-W come into existence.

The forces of two beings cannot come into dispute until after they have first joined. Thus there is no war like that seen between brothers or husband and wife.

The cycle is this:

Independent Beings

Communication

Mis-Communication

Control

Mis-Control

Help

Failed Help

Overts and Withholds

Overts and Withholds by Transfer

Worrying Others

Worrying about Others

Being Critical

Being Critical of Self

Basically, O-W is an effort to regain the status of independent being without taking responsibility for any of the intervening steps.

The reason we run O-Ws is that most pcs are on O-W by Transfer, which is to say, when they kick George in the head they get a headache themselves. This makes them think they are George. We use O-W since it explains phenomena found at a low humanoid level. We do not use it because it is a senior governing law of the universe.

When Help comes up, O-W as a mechanism drops out. We could run a full case, it would appear, with Help. However, in practice it is better to run lots of O-W with failed help as they complement each other and move the case faster. By running O-W we disclose many new failed helps. Why? Look at the cycle above and see that O-W occurs only when Help has failed.

Similarly, on the same cycle we see that worry undercuts O-W. But if it is run, it should be worked with O-W. The worry cure has commands as follows:

Get the idea of worrying something.

Get the idea of not worrying something.

Get the idea of something being worrisome.

People, animals, things can be used in place of “something”. The process, going rapidly up toward failed help, is a bit limited and should be run with another process of the type of “Get the idea of attacking something” “Get the idea of not attacking something” to keep it going. The worry process bogs if run too long just by itself. It is a very valuable process as it explains many reactions and undercuts many cases. Worrying something is close to the lowest level of overt. It is the lowest effort to individuate.

But just as worry is not a way of life nor an answer to all of life, neither is the O-W mechanism an end-all law.

Many cases are not up to recognizing their overts. They will also have trouble recognizing their failures to help. Usually, then, they can recognize being worried or worrying people and thinking unkind thoughts and even attacking things.

Failed help also lies as a harmonic below O-W and so runs on any case if assisted with O-W as in Formula 13 or assisted with the Worry Process as above.

Worrying people is almost a way of life for the juvenile, just as O-W is with a criminal. People who feel childish or act that way are stuck in the violent motion of childhood and worrying others. Many pcs use their processing just to worry the auditor. Worry is the most easily dramatized O-W.

O-W, whether as worry or being critical (unkind thoughts), is the result of failure to help. O-W is the reason one gets another’s valence. O-W is why pcs have somatics. But O-W is not a high order law.

You will not always have to be careful not to bump Joe. It would be a horrible universe indeed if O-W was its senior law, for one could then never do anything.

Fortunately, it drops out, both as a governing law and a necessity in life.

[This HCO B was later reissued from Saint Hill Manor on 5 January 1961 with the distribution “Franchise Holders”.]