Former ACC students will well remember the E-Meter drill in which, among other “reactions”, they were to produce a rising needle on their coach. The time has come to change nomenclature on this one! For practical auditing purposes — such as deciding if a Sec Check question has been cleared, or whether a particular level of the Pre-Hav Scale should be run — a Rising Needle is not classified as a “reaction”.
Of the 10 needle actions described in Ron’s new book, E-Meter Essentials, let’s call the following “reactions”, in as much as they are of value to an auditor in deciding what needs to be run on a case, or what needs further work:
The following might be called, simply, needle actions, or motions — in that you don’t use them in deciding to do something with a pc:
About all a rising needle tells you is that the pc can’t confront, therefore has exceedingly low reality, responsibility, and knowingness on whatever significance it’s rising on. So, skip it! Treat a rising needle, for practical purposes like a Security Check or Assessment, like a nul needle. You needn’t pursue this particular subject any further at this point in the case, because the pc’s knowingness and responsibility on this subject is practically nil. There may very well be further material available on this particular subject after the pc has had some more auditing — but not now. So, let go of it. Skip it! So, it’s putting the Tone Arm up, this rise. All right. That’s why E-Meters are built with Tone Arms that rotate; sometimes they go up! Fine. You don’t need to do a blessed thing about it, and shouldn’t try. Just keep on with your check, assessment, or whatever it is you’re doing. Let your auditing guides be the rock slam, fall, theta bop, chiefly, plus stick and change of pattern.
If it’s a rise with sticks in it, you do find out what’s putting the stick into it. If it were a rising needle with rock slam in it you’d investigate the rock slam. But the rise itself, or a needle that is simply rising, you ignore.
In this way you will save hours and hours of auditing time. Trying to kill a rise by finding out what it’s rising on is attacking the case at its least approachable point — the point responsibility, reality, confrontingness and knowingness are at their lowest, the point when the pc (and the meter!) is least capable of helping you, or himself. Why try to scale a wall where it’s 20 feet high when you can walk through the breaches in it? So gear him in instead where the needle is reacting with rock slam, falls, theta bop, or sticks, where he has some reality and responsibility, where he knows something about it, and can confront it a little. That way he’ll move, and you’ll both win.