I'd like to talk to you today about Elementary Straightwire. And under this subject comes the Auditor's Code, Self Analysis, memory and mass, past-life loss of memory, and the fact that MEST knows a datum.

Now, Elementary Straightwire is a very interesting subject, particularly since it can utterly change the mind of anyone to whom it is addressed; it is a very powerful process, and is one of the basic processes of Dianetics and Scientology. The first Straightwire that was used was evidently used by Hippocrates, who knew its value back in Greek days, since he says, "A patient is not well until he has told at least five people about his operation." And he evidently made a practice of this sort of thing.

But we don't hear about it seriously as anything useful, until the days of Sigmund Freud when he began this endless thing known as associative … Matter of fact, I've forgotten most of the material in psychoanalysis. There's a terrific amount of material on the subject of you get the fellow to talk, and he keeps on talking, and if he talks enough years, why, he will eventually dredge up something.

Let's compare that to the Aesculapian practice and find out if there's a considerable advance. The Aesculapians practiced in the early days of Greece, by hypnotic suggestion. They used hellebore to produce a savage and violent shock in the person, and then would talk to him in such a way as to produce dreams, which they would then convince him, afterwards, was a visitation of a god, and this was all very interesting.

But that actually is where psychiatry gets, intimately and directly, the whole theory of shock as a therapy. Nuts. The Greeks and the use of hellebore — a psychiatrist does it today with electricity. I mean, it's just as unworkable today as it was then, but it's something to do — better than standing around, I guess, smoking a cigarette. So they do that.

Now, you say, "What does this have to do with Straightwire?" I'm just demonstrating to you that first we had an impound — you know, we inflowed like mad against the person and then after a while we let him outflow — without any directive material or direction, really, on the part of the doctor treating him — and then we got up to the field of more selective recall. And that's practiced to some slight degree by Jung and Adler. And we finally come up to the Dianetic auditor, 1950, and we got what is known today as Straightwire.

You can see that Straightwire is pinpointing the trouble and using a knowledge of the mechanics of the mind in order to locate and pinpoint the difficulty. The Freudian analyst lets the patient regurgitate Lord-knows-how-much material just in the hopes that the patient will stumble over something, and sooner or later, then, the analyst will be able to evaluate it for him.

That is Straightwire, if you wish to call it that. And the Dianetic auditor pinpointed it, out of a knowledge of the mind. He was looking for incidents appertaining to pain and unconsciousness. And he was trying to get the locks which held such engrams in suspense — and it took a lock. So the auditor, by Straightwire, could hit one of these locks, and he would simply shoot for it. And he knew about valences and he knew a great deal of other material, and so he was able to pinpoint these held-down points in the computer, you might say. And by Straightwire, just getting the fellow to recall them directly, he could relieve the tension on the case.

Quite remarkable material, quite remarkable results, have ensued from just this ordinary, but rather complicated, use of Straightwire. You see what that is, then? It's … Knowing that he could get into his mother's or father's valence, you might ask him, "Now, can you recall a time when you decided to be like your father? Do you recall a time when somebody told you you were like your father?" He'll eventually remember something like that, and the valence mechanism will shift.

All right, there are other things. "Can you recall a time when you …" (overt-act-motivator sequence) "Can you recall a time when you told somebody they were just like their father?" You see? And if he could recall such things, why, it would cause a resurgence in the case, and he would get out of his father's valence, and so would be rid of all the maladies he was carrying around which were actually his father's maladies and did not belong to him.

Now, as we look along this line which goes from the ancient Greek until now, we discover simply this: That people who were practicing this knew more and more and more about the actual mechanics of the mind and the factors which were the most vital factors in the mind.

Freud got onto the dynamics. He got onto the dynamics, at least, by emphasizing the second dynamic. He had seven more to go, but he nevertheless was on the way.

And because sex is a hidden thing in this society — naturally, any time you can get anybody to remember anything about sex, you are getting him to remember a hidden communication, which is a tremendously important process all by itself. And you ask somebody, "Let's point out some hidden communications. Let's point out some hidden joys. Let's point out some hidden satisfaction," anything like this. Or "Give me some unknown data." The fellow will sit there and be … This is, by the way, a technique. It's impossible for him to answer this question. You ask him, "Give me an unknown datum," and what happens is every time he looks at a datum that he considers unknown it immediately becomes known.

And he just reels off these thousands and thousands of locks at a great rate of speed, one after the other, you see? — all the time trying to find an unknown datum. You see, he has taken the knownness off the bank. He asises the knownness from the bank, you see, and that leaves the unknownness on the bank. And all you've asked him to do is as-is the unknownness which is on the bank.

Now, as-ising unknownness is quite antipathetic to trying to remember something, you see this? As-ising unknownness is not as-ising data. But unknownness is itself a sort of datum. It is the consideration that something cannot be known and somebody never as-ises this. As witness this fact: The whole field of psychology has been so confronted, so thoroughly, with this datum — that something cannot be known — that it has refused, bluntly and precisely, to admit at any time that the problem to which it was dedicated was a workable, solvable problem. What are they working on it for? You want to know the difference between Dianetics and psychology, just take a look at that.

They do not believe the problem they are working on can be solved, because I've had psychologist after psychologist, psychology department after psychology department, tell me "The human mind, of course, is far too complicated to be solved; you realize that." Well, I asked them, "What the devil are you doing sitting there, then, calling yourself an expert on the subject of the human mind? If you believe the problem can't be solved, then what are you doing on this track? Get the ties off the rails and let's get going!" And that's why you, when you're out there trying to train somebody who has been a psychologist, will find yourself going appetite over tin cup with this fellow, because you're training somebody who has made the assumption that the problem is not capable of solution. And you're teaching him the solution in the teeth of the fact that it can't be solved.

We have had psychologists in training for four years in the field of Dianetics, and at the end of four years have discovered that they have not absorbed the most basic principle there was. Just recently we discovered that a psychologist told us that we had made an unreasonable assumption: That some slightly greater freedom was available to the average man. He said we'd made this as an unreasonable assumption. The unexamined assumption in the subject. Where's he been for four years? That's one of the first assumptions we make: That a greater freedom can exist for the individual, and by that greater freedom, that he is then less driven into channels which the society frowns upon. It is restriction which brings on crime, not freedom.

All right, the field of psychology, then, was running up against this exact mechanical thing — unknownness. And they themselves had postulated that unknownness to aid and abet the fact that unknownness can actually exist in the bank — unknown datum. So, one of the trickier forms of Straightwire would simply be to ask somebody, "Give me some unknown data. Give me some unknown times and unknown places." What is stupidity? You want to raise somebody's IQ? Simply ask him for some unknown times and unknown places, because the definition of stupidity is simply this: Having lost the time, the place and the object. And if you can get somebody to lose time, place, object, and lose the time, the place and the object often enough and long enough, he will be stupid, believe me! Stupidity is just that, and no more. I refer you to the printed edition of The Auditor's Handbook.

All right, let's look at this, then, and discover that by Straightwire we could as-is, off the bank, known data and leave there great masses of unknown data; and thereby, just by practicing Straightwire too long, we could make a person more stupid. You got that? But by practicing it for a short time, we could make him brighter — unless we add into it the fact that we can ask him for unknown data, which means that we could use, then, Straightwire forever and he would just keep on getting brighter. And understand this about Straightwire: If you simply ask him for known data, known data, known data, known data, he will eventually get a great deal of stupidity piled up, see, and he will be more stupid. Do you see that?

If you ask him for just a very short time — you know, if you only Straightwire him ten minutes or a half an hour or an hour, or even ten or twenty hours; you know, just Straightwire — you're going to see him get brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter, and then he's going to get more stupid and more stupid and more stupid and more stupid. And he'll finally get back to the point where he was when you first started asking him, and then he will go below that point.

So, we're talking about Straightwire as a momentary or limited technique, and also because we know about this unknown datum as an unlimited technique. So if you understand what I've just said to you, then Straightwire becomes an unlimited technique — if you remember to ask him every once in a while, "Well, give me some unknown mothers."

"Oh," he'll say, "some unknown mothers? There's only one mother as far as I am concerned. Unknown mothers — I don't know, I suppose Ed had a mother, um-um-um-um-um, yeah. Yeah, there's . . . Well, there's little Johnny's mother. Unknown mothers you want, though. Yeah, well, excuse me. Well, there was Bobby's mother, and there was Aunt Gracie's mother, and there's a great-grandmother, and she was somebody's mother, yes, and there was a … I had a dog one time and — wait a minute! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're asking me for some unknown mothers. Yeah, well, I'll give you some in just a minute. And then there's Joe's mother and Bill's mother, and then there's mother's … I-I-I don't know, I … It's elusive, you know, I just …

I-I almost find one, and then I …" And all of a sudden he'll say, "You know, this is kind of dumb. You're asking me for unknown mothers. How could I know them, I have to assume I don't know them before I can then look for them and not find them." And you say, "Well, that's all right; that's all well and good. Just give me some unknown mothers." And great stretches of Straightwire occur. Enormous vistas of life open up that he's never before inspected. Why? Because he as-ised all the knownness off the bank, and anything that was a little difficult to know, or that he had to reach for a little bit, why, he said then, "That's unknown." Well, you've asked him to pick up all those walls, you know. Of course, he picks them up and there's a picture behind each one of them. See the trick?

Then how does Straightwire become an unlimited technique? By occasionally interjecting into it requests for unknown times, places, objects, per-sons. Ask him for unknown times, places, objects and persons. You'll get back into past lives so fast that you'll wonder how on earth he didn't remember them in the first place. See that? All right.

Then, Straightwire at large becomes unlimited if you remember to as-is the unknown factors out of it. Now, another factor in the field of interest comes this way: If you ask a fellow to remember all the things which were interesting in his life, he would as-is off — you know, erase — all of the interest in his past life. And you would say, "Well, that's fine, he'll then no longer be interested in his past life and so it'll go away." Oh, no you don't! You've left the disinterest on the bank.

Now, if you ask a preclear, sometime or another, to take a look at the lamp in your office and get the idea of being tremendously interested in it, and then without calling back to him any of the energy he's put out toward it, simply to take his attention off of it and abandon it — the beam he's put out will smack him in the face. You see how you do this? You tell him to get interested in something; now tell him to take his attention off it and — you know, cease to be interested in it but don't take the beam off of it; you know, just leave himself connected to it but cease to be interested in it — bang! Horrible.

All right, what's this? Interest is itself, at first — most basically, of course — is a consideration. Interest is basically a consideration. But that consideration develops into energy particles which are just as real as any energy particle. And a fellow can get connected to things and then become — with interest — and then become disinterested in them and still remain connected to them. And so he has a tendency to become very, very solid.

So if you simply asked this person for all of the interesting things in his life — "Remember a time, now, when you were interested in your mother. Remember a time when you were interested in your father. Remember a time when you were interested in dogs. Remember a time when you were . . ." Zzup, zzup. The next thing you know, jam! What have you done? With the assumption that he was to find some interest in dogs, he did. But he created some new interest for the bank as well as the interest which was already there, you see? Now he takes his attention off, he hits the disinterest about the subject of dogs and doesn't as-is it or erase it.

So, a Straightwire question which would plow it up and make him extremely happy, would be to "Give me some times . . ." By the way, it'd make him awfully miserable at first; and again, this makes an unlimited technique if you do this: "Give me some times when you were disinterested in your mother. Disinterested in your father. Can you recall a time when you ceased to be interested in moving fast? Ceased to be interested in speed? Can you recall a place that you're no longer interested in?" Get the idea? He'll all of a sudden start to come up to the surface.

What happens? Interest thrown at any energy mass causes it to begin to dissolve, and throws into restimulation the disinterest which is already there.

Now, here's the explanation of the dilettante I was talking to you about in the last lecture. He's as-ised all of the interest. He has created no new interest, and he has left in existence disinterest. And this disinterest exists as energy deposits which then absorb any interest he puts out. And this is the mechanics behind interest and disinterest, and why your dilettante is very often completely bogged in a very short space of time. He starts to be interested in something and he bogs on it immediately.

Now, one of the odd angles of Straightwire is that Straightwire — in the field of interest — can be accomplished very, very much on the order of shotgun. In other words, you can ask for a concept and run a concept. You're then doing a sort of a shotgun Straightwire, you see? And it's not anywhere near as good, really, as pinpointed Straightwire where you're getting the specific incident.

You know, if you're asking him and he remembers specific incidents, it's very good. And you're running Straightwire if you're asking him for specific moments when and where, you know. That's Straightwire. And if you're asking him "give me a concept; run a flow; get the idea," you're not asking him for specific incidents. See what you're asking him for? You're asking him for a shotgun, scattered all over the place, and it's nowhere near as good as pinpointing.

Now, this you must know about Straightwire: It is better to get pinpointed, actual incidents than it is to shotgun with "Get the idea, now, of sitting there and being disinterested." It'd be much better to use Straightwire. "Give me a time when you were disinterested in life." And have him remember an actual time when he was disinterested in life. See that?

The essence of Straightwire, what we mean by Straightwire, is the recovery of the actual time, place and object. Now, let me be a little more specific: The recovery of a memory which immediately and actually appertains to time, place, object — remembering all the while that there are two things that can get in the road: one is unknownness, and the other one, disinterest. These two things will get in our road.

We ask him for all the known times and places, endlessly, and we'll have simply as-ised them all. See that? And we ask him for all the interesting things in his life, and we will have as-ised them all — in other words, erased them. If this fellow isn't producing very much interest, we will leave him in an unknown state of mind — "Who am I?" "Mr. What-Wall" — and we will leave him in a disinterested frame of mind. Unknown and disinterested. On the one hand, stupid, and on the other hand, disinterested in existence. You see that? So Straightwire, then, must take care of these two problems, and if it doesn't take care of these two problems, it's not good Straightwire.

All right, let's go over what Straightwire is again. Straightwire is: Specific points in time, space and specific objects — very specific, you see. You're asking for the time when, the object that. See? The place where, with (added to it) "Give me some unknown places where; Give me some disinteresting things," but making sure that he gets the exact place, the exact time, the exact object. In other words, "remember." Follow me now? All right.

Straightwire has some more to it. Why is it called Straightwire? It's called Straightwire because it is stringing a line between cause and effect, directly and with no vias. Straightwire, as opposed to wire which runs through relays. You want direct cause and effect.

Now, a thetan has gone all the way through this universe, unable to discover cause. Why can't he discover cause? In the first place, he's never going to really discover cause, because cause is without mass, without energy or wavelength, has no location in space, has no time; and that is the biggest cause there is. That's a static.

Now, actually, in view of the fact that a thetan actually has no mass, no energy or wavelength, no space or location in, and no time — in view of this fact — and in view of the fact that he can yet change his mind, make considerations and render effects, we discover that he would be an unknown cause, wouldn't we? And on the other hand, he would also be actually an unknown effect. So an unknown cause to an unknown effect gradually drives a thetan daffy. You see this? He can never find this cause. He can find the last particle of energy in the last space, but beyond that, there's — rrrr! See? And when he's trying to make an effect on somebody, he gets the idea after a while that he can get down to that last particle of energy in that space, in that time, and beyond that — nyah!

So he never gets to an ultimate, he never gets to an absolute effect and he can never discover an absolute cause. And for that reason we have, in Dianetics, the Axiom "Absolutes are unobtainable." And that's exactly what that means. It doesn't mean anything else, it just doesn't happen to apply to that. Absolutes are unobtainable. What are the absolutes here? Cause and effect.

So, the best he can ever do is discover "assisting causes" and "assisting effects." He can discover the energy, the times and the spaces which assist causes and which assist effects. When you're giving him Straightwire, you must know that you are always going in the direction of an unsolvable effect, an unsolvable cause. And remember, the only thing that's ever worried him is the fact that it is unknown or unsolvable, and that it is uninteresting, really. That cause, that effect, never themselves as energy masses could be called interesting or uninteresting. So he gets the idea that they're disinterested.

Man has a great avidity for this. He mocks up all sorts of saints and builds them out of plaster, I call to your attention, in order to demonstrate to himself that a thetan can be interested in him. In other words, he tries to do it by mock-ups, because he can't do it really.

So when you're rendering and delivering Straightwire, you must realize that the bulk of the concern on the bank is wrapped up in "uninteresting" on the one hand, and in "unknownness" on the other hand. Unknown what? Unknown cause.

Stupidity is unknown place, time and object. So, that's anxiety too, you know. It's about all there is to it. Anxiety, fear, worry — what's all this connected with? It's connected with simply this: an unknown cause, an unknown effect. Did he really do it? Did he really cause the effect, or didn't he? No certainty. Because he depends for certainty on impact.

Impact certainty steps in here, and he said, "Well I can at least be certain that there's a wall over here." And he goes wandering around too long, getting too concerned with the ultimates and absolutes of cause and effect, and he begins to neglect the fact that at least there's a wall here. See, he neglects this "at least there's a wall." So, by Straightwire, you can show him that there's an awful lot of memory on the bank that he is overlooking. He gets so desperate about this thing that he will forget things. He'll make a postulate that he can no longer remember them. And so you get a person with a poor memory. A person with a poor memory though, remember, is just doing this: he's obscuring place, time and object, isn't he? He's just obscuring this thing.

Now, of course, because Straightwire deals primarily and basically with communication, hidden communication becomes very important in the field of Straightwire — so important that if you could take somebody out on a street corner where there are a lot of people and there's a lot of scenery and a lot of things going around, and simply have him point out some hidden communications, he would feel better and better and better and better and better. That's not Straightwire. That's environmental observation. That's environmental observation. See that? That's not Straightwire. That's an 8-C with a concept, or an 8-C with an idea. You're making him spot the vicinity. Straightwire, then, refers immediately to the past. It refers immediately to the past.

Now, one of the most dangerous postulates that comes up out of the past is that the past can affect you. But if you didn't have the postulate the past could affect you, then nothing could affect you. And a person gets an idea though, that a past is affecting him far, far too much, and Straightwire is indicated — definitely indicated.

Many, many combinations, infinity of combinations, could be applied, but in Dianetics and Scientology we use the knowledge of the mind in order to pinpoint what we should ask for. So let's ask for some unknown things, let's ask for some uninteresting things, let's ask for some hidden communications and let's ask for the various other items which are of the obscuring kind, and remembering at the same time to intersperse questions which are really real. You know, ask for the data too, but don't neglect or forget to handle these unknown, uninteresting factors. Don't as-is all the data off the bank and leave nothing there — a soggy mass of stupidity.

All right, the most basic and elementary Straightwire — remembering all these other factors — the most basic and elementary Straightwire is of course ARC Straightwire. But when we say Straightwire, we are simply talking about stringing a line from cause to effect through the past. And that's what we mean by Straightwire. And it's direct, pinpointing questions which bring this to the attention of the individual. What bars him from remembering all there is to remember is, of course, the fact that many of the data, he has pronounced to be unknown; and much of the material, he has withdrawn from, because it was uninteresting.

So if we include these factors in, then we could Straightwire straight back to the beginning of all time, and Straightwire out the postulate of time itself, if you wanted to.

Now, as soon as we go into the subject of Straightwire, we begin to realize that there are a tremendous number of combinations of questions which we could ask a preclear. An infinity of questions, just as there are an infinity of life motives and forms. So we have to know our basics very, very well to keep from wandering into the unproductive bypasses in the bank.

Now, the preclear who is sitting in front of us has lost cause-points. He doesn't know what caused the effect, he doesn't know what is causing the effect, there is a hidden cause scattered around in his bank and he is looking for it. And he will look, look, look, look, look, and scale off all available data, and not scale off the uninteresting data, and not scale off or erase the unknown data, and so he will eventually leave himself in a fine state of Homo sapiens.

How does he get to be Homo sapiens? He starts looking for cause, cause, cause, cause, cause — "We can't find it, don't know where it is, don't know where it is, don't know where … Well, there's one. No, that isn't it. There .. . No, that isn't it. There — there's … no, that's … Oh! No, th . . . Uh!" Finally, he'll even welcome a bullet. He knows at least the bullet killed him. See, that's certainty now; he's certain now. Well, you must get him to be fairly easy about the ideas of cause and effect.

One of the good ways to do it is to simply ask him questions which direct his attention immediately into those factors which are the factors of Dianetics and Scientology; and this is survive; the eight dynamics — in Scientology, the Mystery to Know Scale — and very, very and most importantly, ARC: affinity, reality and communication.

Now, ARC Straightwire is quite a technique all by itself. But when we're asking him for things, remember to remember your fundamentals, and apply and use those fundamentals on him. Don't ask him for times when all of his schoolbooks were lost. You know, "Can you remember a time when all your schoolbooks were lost?" This is not an important question. An important question would be "Give me some times when you decided not to survive." Verrrrrrr!

If he can't remember any, well, "Give me some unknown times when you decided not to survive." You got the idea?

You could ask him, "Now, when did you first get interested in this type of psychosomatic illness?" See what it would do — what would happen to him? "Give me some times when you became disinterested in this psychosomatic illness." And it'll go away. He'll skim off all the interesting points while he's looking for the uninteresting ones, you see?

So, remembering these tricks and these basics, and remembering that life is pretty well patterned out by these various fundamentals which we find are the common denominators of existence — and you will discover as you begin to use them that they are the common denominators of existence — why, we can produce some tremendous results with Straightwire.

Well, one of the mechanical ways of producing results is ARC Straightwire, and ARC Straightwire had an elementary form. Its most elementary form was — and boy, you'd better know this one by heart, shall we, because this is a very elementary form indeed — "Can you recall a time that is really real to you? A time when you were in good communication with someone? A time when someone was in good communication with you? A time that is really real to you? A time when you were in good communication with someone? A time when someone was in good communication with you? A time when you felt some affinity for someone? A time when someone felt some affinity for you?" Now, that's the most elementary form of it. But if you use that very long — if you use that very long — remember to use the reverse side of it. All angels have two faces: a good face and a bad one. And so it is with the bank. It's got a good face and a bad face. "Can you remember a time that's really unreal to you? Can you remember a time when someone refused to communicate with you? Can you remember a time when you refused to communicate with someone? Can you remember a time when there was no affinity? When nobody felt any affinity for you?" If you don't reverse the coin, sooner or later you're going to bog your boy. You'll just as-is off everything. You know, all angels have two faces — so does life. Has a good face and a bad face.

All right. The most elementary form, then, you will find in the next-to-the-last list of Self Analysis. And you will discover, however, that by reversing its face it becomes an unlimited technique. But as for a quick boost and a good assist, and a temporary, limited technique, which you're only going to use for a few minutes, an hour, something like this, just ARC Straightwire — "Remember a time that's really real to you" — is excellent. You have to test this out to really know it.

Now, of course, there is a more basic Straightwire than this. We actually — if we're starting to research the memory — we had better start in with the factors which make memory. And there aren't any hidden factors which make memory, besides remembering and forgetting. Any time you think there are any more factors to memory, you … Because memory, by itself, simply implies this mechanical action of remembering and forgetting.

Memory is not necessarily living at all. It's just a mechanical little ma-chine that goes whir-whir and delivers you the datum when you want it. So we have a more basic Straightwire: "Remember something you wouldn't mind remembering," "How about recalling something you wouldn't mind forgetting." See? That's the two factors of memory. And it will certainly knock this little machine called memory either into line or out of operation entirely — at least you produce an effect.

Now, those are Straightwire in its most elementary forms, and we discover that the rendition of Straightwire is more important, however, in many cases, than the question asked. You've got the question asked, you can commit this to memory, and it ceases to be all-important when you know what all the forms of Straightwire are.

If you want some forms of Straightwire, by the way, open up Self

Analysis — old-time Self Analysis. Boy, there's Straightwire in there to end all Straightwire, and if you add to its factors "uninterestingness," you know, and "unknownness," why, it'll just reel off everything for you. There's practically every combination of life in that old book. It's based on the formula of control: start, stop and change — the whole book is. The factors of control are start, stop and change.

Now, the rendering, then, of Straightwire becomes all-important, and this becomes the variable factor. The other factor is not variable. You can commit these things to memory — it's very easy to know, and so forth — so the variable factor becomes your skill in administering Straightwire. And your skill depends first and foremost upon (1) getting a two-way communication with a preclear which remembers to keep interested. You even see sessions given by auditors as demonstration sessions in which there is not enough interest. You can notice that there really isn't enough interest. He's just giving a demonstration, he's not interested really in making the preclear well. And you can notice that the session is not delivering. You know, he's just demonstrating the session. If he were really in there auditing, he would be interested — he would be interested in the preclear, not in giving a demonstration. See that?

So the interest factor must be in there while you're giving this, which means that you've got to maintain everything we know about a two-way communication in order to deliver Straightwire.

Now, we've got to observe the communication lag. The auditor has got to stay interested, and he's got to observe this communication lag, and he's got to repeat that question and get incidents as long as there is a communication lag upon obtaining those incidents. "Remember something real," you say to somebody. It's nothing to have somebody tell you forty-five minutes later, the first one — just nothing for this to happen. Well, you'd certainly ask the question again, then, wouldn't you? And you'd ask again and again and again and again and again until he could finally spit them out in a fairly quick fashion. See that?

So communication lag becomes all-important. Straightwire, because we can codify it, because it is very precisely codified, because we can understand its factors and even commit them to memory, becomes unimportant in a form just as soon as you know it. By the way, you'd better know those forms before you assume it's unimportant.

But as soon as you know that, then we must pay attention to the only factor which can vary, and that factor is the auditor's presence and his delivery of Straightwire. It's how he administers his questions to the preclear. And if he can do a good job of it, of course, his preclear will get well rather rapidly. And if he does a poor job of it, his preclear won't. If the auditor is good at Straightwire, we are assuming already that he is good at two-way communication, observing the communication lag, and that he will pursue the technique as long as he believes that it is producing change and result in the preclear.

All right, now let's look at the code of how you administer any kind of auditing and realize that if we're talking now about the administration of a technique to make it workable, then we'd certainly better codify the various "can'ts" or "don'ts." Now, over a period of four years we've learned a great deal, a very great deal, about what not to do to a preclear and what to do to one. And although the first code as given in Book One was a very idealistic and workable code and was better than no code at all, in four years of accumulated data we have actually accumulated a code which is a very, very good code, and which does contain the factors which immediately and directly knock to pieces a case.

And if you paid attention to the Auditor's Code and knew your business and were interested in your preclear, why, you would just sail right along beautifully — be no other factor to pay any attention to at all.

Well now, this Auditor's Code is compiled — 1954 — it's compiled out of experience, a great deal of experience, and you should treat it as such. This is not something that LRH dreamed up, it's not something that the HASI is trying to force off on you, it is something that auditors like yourselves have learned over a long period of time. And by isolating all the common denominators of failures in cases we have finally succeeded in getting the Auditor's Code together.

And I'm just going to read it off here. You'll find in one of the PABs, a complete explanation for every step of this code. Well, there's no reason why we should go into that now. I'll simply read you the code.

1. Do not evaluate for the preclear.

2. Do not invalidate or correct the preclear's data.

Those are the two "shuns." No evaluation, no invalidation.

3. Use the processes which improve the preclear's case.

You say, for heaven sakes, that doesn't have to be in there. Oh, yes it does! You know why it does? Horribly enough, an auditor quite commonly uses the processes which would improve his own case. The preclear and an auditor have been put on E-Meters and then the things the auditor has been running at the preclear have been repeated. And it's been discovered that the auditor reacted on them and the preclear didn't. In other words, the auditor had been auditing, all the time, the things that should have been audited on him, not what should have been audited on the preclear.

4. Keep all appointments once made.

If there's anything you want to bog a preclear down with, it's just don't keep the appointment. If you're not going to keep the appointment or if you're sloppy at keeping appointments, for heaven sakes be sloppy in making them! See, this doesn't say you have to be very precise about appointments, but if you make them, keep them. If you make them, then it's just your hard luck, you've got to keep them, even if you've got a broken leg. Because what it does to a preclear's case, shouldn't happen.

You know, you're half an hour late for the appointment, something like that. What are you telling him? You're telling him "I'm not interested in you, Mr. Preclear." And you think after that that you're going to get anyplace with this case? Boy, you're sure not. He's going to stick and bog and every-thing else. You've just told him, by being late or not keeping the appointment, that you aren't interested in him. And boy, does he take it to heart. Because boy, is he being a problem, you see, and he's got to have interest to live. And he'll just go to pieces — happens all too often.

5. Do not process a preclear after 10 P.m.

Why 10 P.M.? Well, 10 P.M. We just found out that preclears who are processed after 10 P.M. are boggy enough so that a technique which would have been okay at 8 P.M. will shoot them on over to 2 P.M. [A.M.]. And you process anybody after 10 P.M., you're liable to be processing him at 3 and 4 P.M. [A.M.], because he isn't alert enough at those hours of the day. He's built on algae, and at night — you know, plankton, monocells, so forth; that's his past history of his body, and these things quite customarily and commonly are starved for energy during the hours when the sun is not present. And whatever his habit patterns of existence, his body cells are going to react. And if you're having any difficulty with your preclear at all, his body is drinking energy off of him every time — as a thetan — every time he tries to produce any energy. The body is starved at those hours and so sucks up the energy of the thetan, and you can't do too much with him.

You start in, then, running a technique, and all the body will do is just suck up the energy. You can count on the fact that if you are adventurous enough to go to 10:30 on a preclear or two, sooner or later, you know, you all of a sudden will be processing him at 2:00. Why? Just hour after hour after hour, you see? He's on the verge of spinning. Fellow's perfectly normal, usually. So just don't process past 10 P.M. That 10 P.M. deadline gives you enough to kind of square it away and straighten it out and cut it out, see? But past 10:00, you've got no chance.

6. Do not process a preclear who's improperly fed.

Same thing. Body's too starved. They spin; they can't run as an engine. So the thetan is trying to pump this body up and make it run and be audited at the same time, and it just doesn't work — body requires food; a thetan doesn't.

7. Do not permit a frequent change of auditors.

8. Do not sympathize with the preclear.

9. Never permit the preclear to end the session on his own independent decision.

10. Never walk off from a preclear during a session.

11. Never get angry with the preclear.

12. Always reduce every communication lag encountered by continued use of the same question or process.

And 13. Always continue a process as long as it produces change and no longer.

Oh, boy! Those two — altogether, those two are the difference between a good auditor and a bad auditor.

I'll say that again. These two: Always reduce every communication lag encountered by continued use of the same question or process. If an auditor won't do that, he's a bad auditor. What makes a bad auditor a bad auditor? The fact that he doesn't do this. That's what makes him a bad auditor. You know, he can get away with murder in other directions and still not be a bad auditor. But a bad auditor does this one, and this one: Always continue a process as long as it produces change and no longer.

A bad auditor will Q-and-A with a preclear. See, he'll duplicate the pre-clear. The preclear gets a change, the auditor will change the process. Pre-clear gets a change, the auditor will change the process. No, no! This process was going to go along and produce a great many more changes. And instead of going along and reducing the process lag, why, the auditor changes the process. He's just duplicating. He's weak, you know? The preclear changes, so he duplicates the preclear and he changes the process. And the preclear changes again and he changes the process. Next thing you know, he's got the preclear in the midst of all these changes — bogged.

See, he just didn't finish off the process. Now, that's a bad auditor. We can chalk them up … By the way, it's a very interesting thing, but their accident rate (their accident-proneness), their changingness of techniques on the preclear, and a dozen other factors, all go along together. And given some of these factors, we can say to ourselves, "Oh well, he'll probably change processes on the preclear every time the preclear changes." That's a bad auditor. Just grind it through. As long as the preclear is changing under that process, run the process. The other rule is: The process which turned on the somatics will turn them off.

So, you'll leave the fellow all hung up, you see, if you change the process every time he gets a little change.

That was quite a victory, by the way — learning that. Learning that one, smelling that one out amongst auditors and being able to point it out to them was quite a victory in the field of processing. We understood an awful lot, all of a sudden, and we understood that the auditor changing this process all the time on the preclear was actually what was spinning preclears and making this auditor get no results.

14. Be willing to grant beingness to the preclear.

Damn few auditors do until they are in good condition.

15. Never mix the processes of Scientology with those of various other practices.

Now, of course that also applies to Dianetics. And this is also the Auditor's Code of Dianetics.

All right, so much for that Auditor's Code. Take it, live by it, abide by it, and you will discover that all these hitherto mysterious manifestations on the part of your preclear will start to become very easily understood indeed. You'll say, "This preclear's case is not progressing. Go and read your Auditor's Code. Did you do any of these things?" You say, "Ahhhh, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah! You know, that fellow's awfully thin, I wonder if he's eating." You chump, you've been processing somebody who never ate breakfast and who couldn't stomach dinner, and he's been going downhill, downhill, downhill. A preclear who is improperly fed — didn't have anything to do with your auditing, it had to do with beefsteak. Some preclears will buy an intensive off of you and then be so broke thereafter, that they will not be able to afford food while they're in the area. So they'll eat engrams.

Now, Self Analysis, as a book, is a good book, as such, which can be trusted to people who ask you how they go about processing somebody. Shove them a copy of Self Analysis. It tells them how to do it, saves you a lot of time, and they won't get into trouble with it. They can go out and fool around with this on a case for a long time and produce good results. Of course, they don't know all there is to know about it because they have that book, but that is your little pal. That keeps you from rendering enormous quantities of charity auditing. That keeps you from having to practically educate some co auditor's auditor, see? You say, "Well, here. Here's Self Analysis. Here's a copy of Self Analysis. Take that home, and you do it just like it says, right there." By the way, if you tell them to do it together, or to have three or four people get together and do it together, it's a lot of fun. It's a great game, Self Analysis is; a lot of sport. That's your stopgap. What do you do with these people, you know, that want to be educated by you free of charge, all in one evening, as to how they're going to get their mother out of the spin that they put them into? Hand them a copy of Self Analysis.

Now, memory and mass: If we're talking about Straightwire, we're talking about memory, then, aren't we? We're talking, then, about mass. When a person loses a mass, he very often fails to differentiate between the mass and the memory of the mass. And when he loses a mass, he loses the memory of the mass. You know, loss is loss — loss of mass, loss of memory.

A fellow loses a body all of a sudden; this body has been walking for him, talking for him, speaking for him, spitting for him. It has also been — he thinks — remembering for him. So he loses this mass, then he doesn't remember his past life. See, he thinks he's brand-new and fresh, right there. See how this would be? Lose the mass, lose the memory. Get the mass, and very often, recover the memory — so that you have a fellow's memory sometimes getting better after he's been in an auto accident. Smash! Peps him up, gives him some new somatics and new ridges. His memory is better. You also find it getting much worse sometimes after such a situation. Amnesia, by the way, is an interesting manifestation of a thetan going away and picking up another body.

Now let's go into the fact that MEST knows. And let's understand this pretty clearly. Anybody who goes over the line, when he himself can't know, decides that MEST knows. Knowingness could be divided into the knowingness which is simply the thetan knowing, and on the other hand could be a fixed datum — MEST doing the knowingness for him.

Now, let me point out to you that a small cannon knows it's a small cannon — doesn't know anything else. But it sure knows it's a small cannon, doesn't it? In other words, that's an identification knowingness. And somebody comes along and finds this a very, very easy way to remember this.

The cannon knows it's a cannon; there it is — this is the way it looks, you know? This is a rather aberrated view, by the way, but this is the way it looks to people. A cannon knows it's a cannon. That's all it knows. And John Jones knows he's John Jones. That's all he knows. You get a similarity here?

When a fellow can't solve any problems at all, he picks on the most obvious identity he can and becomes that, because he is given the picture of MEST out here all the time doing that. This wall knows it's a wall; it doesn't know anything else, it just knows it's a wall. That's what he thinks about that wall, see? He thinks the wall knows it's a wall because it's in the form of a wall. And when he looks at it, he knows it's a wall. It's identified. It has an identification.

All right, the wall is a symbol — a symbol. It's a solid symbol. A symbol has mass, meaning and mobility. Remember this: A symbol has mass, meaning and mobility. Where does it get mass, meaning and mobility? Particularly though, where does it get it's meaning? It gets its meaning from the orientation point. What is the orientation point? It is the viewpoint from which the space is made, to make the space in which the symbol moves. Orientation point, viewpoint. It is that point of viewingness which is making the space which knows what the symbol is and where it is moving. Very often a preclear's orientation point is his mother — or his father or his grandparents or the army, or something. That's his orientation point. See?

And as he moves around, he moves in relationship to this orientation point. Remember, the orientation point is always fixed — thought of as being fixed — and if the orientation point moves, then this symbol gets lost. Mass, meaning and mobility — a symbol has mass, meaning and mobility. It gets its mass, meaning and mobility, it even gets the space in which it moves — it thinks — from the person that is doing the viewing in that particular life.

So we get somebody depending upon Mama as an orientation point, and then Mama dies, and after this the fellow feels lost. Now, all things in the universe are moving in relationship to other things, so therefore we have to think of one space as being motionless, don't we? One point, rather, in space, has to be motionless in order to measure the motion of all other points. See, we've always got to have one point and consider that one point fixed in order to get the movement of other points, and to check and orient the movement of other points.

If we consider all points in motion and no points fixed, we have chaos. And that is the definition of chaos. If you're asked on an examination what chaos is, it would be all points in motion, no point fixed. How do you straighten out a chaos? You get one point not in motion.

Now, how on earth are you going to do this if all points are really in motion? Well, they're only really in motion because the preclear considers they are. So let's have him fix one point.

This person, every time he's lost his orientation point … You know, he moved away from his small town and went to the big city. A small town was his orientation point. Every time he's lost this, that, other orientation points, he just gets more and more lost, more and more lost. And finally all points start to go into motion as far as he's concerned. Then the small town isn't fixed and the city isn't fixed and earth isn't fixed and nothing's fixed and everything is just moving.

Well, the remedy for that is to have him pick out, choose, a fixed point, and simply select it as a fixed point and see how other points are moving in relationship to it.

What's this got to do with Straightwire? Straightwire is all conducted by symbols. Symbols are things which have mass, meaning and mobility. The bank itself has mass, meaning and mobility. An engram is simply a symbol — the words are simply symbols. So therefore, there must be an orientation point somewhere. And if the preclear himself is lost, if he considers himself also in motion, and all the engrams and particles around him in motion, how on earth are you ever going to give this boy any straightening out at all?

The remedy of it is try to make an orientation point out of him. We make an orientation point out of him by showing him that he is in a time. See, well, that's a big jump, you know; he's in a time. We make him find the walls of the room and walk around and touch them. Yes, but you've got him moving, haven't you? Oh, not particularly. He can move — at least he sees the walls are motionless. So he'll choose and then he'll have the walls motionless, see? You make him actually dramatize being a symbol, which is what he's dramatizing. You make him move around in relationship to some fixed walls — one of the reasons it works.

Well now, on Straightwire, remember that a fellow could get into such a chaos of particles, chaos of incidents and a chaos of unknownness — theoretically — he could get into all this chaos of everything moving where he'd be moving too, and he'd just get lost and disoriented and he wouldn't know where he was and he'd be in a fog. That is the state a preclear is in, who is in a fog. See, everything's in motion.

So, we had better have him be in present time for Straightwire. Straightwire demands as part of its conditions that the preclear be in present time while he is, and we are remembering then. We are not then returning him down the track to these incidents, are we? We're just going to have him be in present time and recall these incidents, and maybe point out where they occurred, and tell you when they occurred, and what they occurred to.

But we're making an orientation point out of him with Straightwire, and we are making all these engrams — meaning symbols, objects, places and times — into symbols, which is what they should be, what they are. And as far as the preclear's concerned, there's only one orientation point anywhere that could exist, and that happens to be himself. He is his best orientation point. So we go in the direction, then, of having him be able to handle these symbols of memory — these engrams, these locks, things like that. He has to be able to handle these symbols of memory before he himself can consider that he himself is not a symbol.

And when he can handle all of these symbols as memory, he then considers himself to be an orientation point and so to have some fixity. Then the world can move in relationship to him. This isn't bad — this isn't bad. It's bad when it's done obsessively. You know, the fellow says, "I'm the only one alive." Well, that is the basic obsessive dramatization of insisting on being an orientation point without knowing what one is doing. The difference between an obsession and a sane action is just that. There isn't any other difference of condition, except that a person with an obsession does not know he's doing it. He doesn't know he's the author of the obsession. And a person who is … simply knows he is the author wouldn't have an obsession, he'd simply be sane. Okay?

Elementary Straightwire is recommended to you on cases which are having a great deal of difficulty, and I repeat to you, Elementary Straightwire consists of ARC Straightwire just as given, next-to-the-last list, Self Analysis, and "Something you wouldn't mind remembering" and "Something you wouldn't mind forgetting." And that is Elementary Straightwire. And all these other characteristics which I have given you are added to it, are piled up on it, and have a great deal to do with it, of course. And the first thing you want to know is how to utilize, with the Auditor's Code and interest, Straightwire, in order to make a preclear into a better orientation point and much less of a symbol than he is.

If you can do that properly, you've done it.

Okay.