Most PT terminals and oppterms look more like Coterms than clean Terminals or Opposition Terminals when first contacted. They become more definite Terms or Oppterms after they have been listed a page. While you should be able to make the right choice in most cases by the usual test given in the 2-12 steps you can err.
Your lists will become endless and unnullable and your pc will go downhill if you oppose an RI wrong way to.
Therefore, while listing, carefully observe the needle and the pc. The TA is meaningless in this test. The Indications for testing “Right Way Oppose” and “Wrong Way Oppose” are the subject of this bulletin.
In opposing a Reliable Item you can consider it a Terminal (because pc said it gave pain) and list “Who or What would a Catfish oppose?” Whereas in actual fact it was an Oppterm and should have been listed “Who or What would oppose a Catfish?” Or Vice Versa. Sad consequences follow a wrong choice.
Even the best auditor can make a mistake in calling an RI he’s gotten a Terminal or an Oppterm. The pc is foggy as to what’s pain or sensation. The RI may have both. Sometimes Terminals are so covered with Sen there is no pain at first. Sometimes the hidden Terminal is so hard down on the Oppterm RI it seems like a Terminal.
Further, you can be doing an Opposition to an RI list, expecting a Terminal to come up and get, in fact, another Oppterm. This is fine. Accept it if the list only RSed once on nulling. But the opposing Terminal is still hidden and must be gotten. Pcs, you see, often put Terms and Oppterms on the same list.
Always regard the identity of an RI as a Term or Oppterm as potentially wrong until listed and tested as per this HCO Bulletin. Do the best you can with usual tests to tell what it is before you start listing and choose your oppose question accordingly. But be ready to find that what was a Terminal is really an Oppterm or vice versa and should have been opposed “the other way around”.
You have only two list questions to use in opposing a Reliable Item. These are “Who or What would oppose a?” and “Who or What would a
oppose?” For every Reliable Item there is only one of the above that is right. The other is wrong. There are no true Coterms — they only seem to be both a Terminal (pain) and an Oppterm (sensation).
When it comes to listing you will benefit the pc only by listing the right way. The other oppose question then is the wrong way. If you list the “wrong way” (using the wrong question), you’ll get an ENDLESS LIST that never completes and won’t nul.
You therefore have a choice of two questions and one of them is right and the other wrong, always. If you choose the right one and list it, the pc benefits. If you choose the wrong one and list it the pc will get worse rapidly, right in the session before your eyes.
It often happens that you start listing the wrong way. This is because you failed to find out correctly if the RI you were about to list an opposition list to was a Terminal (pain) or an Opposition Terminal (sensation). The pc said he had “sen” but actually felt “pain”. Or the pc did have “sen” and the pain appeared afterward. In short, because PT Terminals look like Coterms very often, neither the pc nor the auditor can tell on some RIs. This happens to some RIs on every case.
The solution to the dilemma is to test by listing a page or two.
There are certain definite signs of wrong way opposition. They can be seen with half an eye. There is no need to go on until your pc is caved in and you have 99 pages of Items to find out you can’t nul and should have opposed the other way around.
A list right way to or wrong way to will Rockslam, so that’s no test in itself. The tests, five in number, are a little more delicate:
Aside from original tests for Term or Oppterm, how to tell if an oppose list is right way to:
If List is wrong way oppose (which is to say the wording is reversed, such as “Who or What would oppose a Catfish?” as different from “Who or What would a Catfish oppose?”) these things will always happen:
Whether your list is right way oppose or wrong way oppose the pc may get pain and sensation, even nausea. Indeed, be worried only if the pc doesn’t. These don’t count. Pain and Sensation are used for the first test you make in selection. But aren’t used beyond that test given in the Steps of 2-12. It’s the darkening colour of the pc and his or her apparent age that count. Your tests above are visual not getting data from the pc. Pcs will list wrong way to and plow themselves right on in with no complaint.
If you start listing wrong way to, and then turn it around, the pc will have trouble giving right way to Items for a bit, and then they come at a rapid easy flow and you get all the above 5 things for the right way list. Unless you change around to the right way and continue to list the wrong way you will continue to get the 5 indications given for wrong lists.
Sometimes an RI is so fouled up you have to test by listing one way, then the other and then back to the first way again.
A little experience is solid gold, for you begin to see the 5 indications for right lists and the 5 indications for wrong lists and recognize them more quickly.
When you have opposed wrongly and then, in opposing right way to you get a complete list, you never bother to nul the wrong way list. You just abandon it. The RI won’t be on it. You only nul the right way oppose list.
Rule: Never nul lists taken from wrong sources. Just abandon.
No list ever went to 50 pages that was right way to. Right Way Oppose Lists that can be completed are probably all below 500 Items, the usual being around 250 Items.
Wrong Way Oppose is the chief source of difficulty for any opposition list, rivalled only by Incomplete Lists as a trouble maker in Routine 2.
A wrong way oppose list is of course “Wrong Source” as one is using “Catfish” as a Terminal instead of “Catfish” as an Oppterm or vice versa.
Endless lists also come from just continuing to list on and on and on, the pc’s needle being dirty by “Protest”. This is just silly. Some supervisor may develop as a stable datum, “If the needle is dirty, just continue listing.” And this is wrong. A needle does get clean when a right way oppose list is completed. But wrong way oppose or Mid Ruds Out can also make a needle dirty.
On an oppose list, if a needle is dirty three main things can be wrong:
Wrong Source (opposing a wrong item) can mess up a pc also. But why’d you take an Item from an incomplete or wrong way list in the first place and then oppose it? The remedy of this one lies before the fact of wrong way oppose, so is not the subject of this HCO Bulletin.