New Era Dianetics and Standard Dianetics


COMMENTS ON CASPAR DE RIJK'S ANALYSIS

 

In his article, Caspar takes a close look at the three main technical changes of New Era Dianetics in 1978, namely:
 
1.   Redefinition of erasure i.e. postulate off=erasure
2.   Redefinition of somatics
3.   Drop of principle of unburdening (going through incidents once only) running with minimum TA
 

 

1. Redefinition of Erasure


I agree that this is a critical point. Because undoubtedly there can be many, if not dozens of postulates found while running a chain, and many could be buried in incidents later than basic. Even if you accept the NED datum that to find the basic postulate will be equal to erasure of the chain, the question is: How could you tell the difference between the pc finding one of them and by that having a cognition and the unrun rest of the chain keys out and the pc finding the "basic postulate" and erase the lot?

But actually this is not a new problem which occurs only on NED style engram running. In the HCOB 23 June 1969, "F/N", LRH speaks about that problem. He says that a PC who gets F/N, Cognition and VGIs has either achieved an erasure or just a key-out and that the latter is rather common. When the last incident run did not have any impact or injury in it, one can assume that the F/N was just on a key-out and continue with running the chain earlier similar. But the safe rule is, says LRH, to let the pc have his win. The worst is that the pc will get the same symptom again sooner or later. But when you push past a win, you might make the pc jump chains and get him into trouble.

So the same will be true for NED: Assumed the Postulate, F/N, VGIs you get is in actual fact not an erasure but just a key-out. Then there will be charge left connected with the original item and also - although at the moment not present - with the running item. You will sooner or later get at it. In any case the handling of the situation does not differ whether you are using Standard Dianetics and R3R or NED and R3RA: In the latter case you take it as EP and assume an erasure. In the former case you would also take it as EP because to find the postulate would presumably always count as a cognition.

But behold, here is one advantage of the NED technology: because you would after an erasure then continue to preassess the same original item, your chance of getting at a possibly just keyed-out but not erased chain is probably bigger than in Standard Dianetics, where you only come back to the same somatic when it appears again in the pc.

The only point where R3RA could get you in trouble is when you hit an EP valid by former Dianetics tech - i.e. F/N, Cognition, VGIs - where the cognition is not a postulate. By NED tech you would probably ask whether the incident has erased, and if yes, whether the pc has made a postulate at the time of the incident. If the pc then finds no postulate, you have to continue running the incident - by Standard Dianetics theory a mistake as it was already assumed erased. The pc, if he doesn't find a postulate on this incident in re-running it, will finally be sent to earlier incidents which, by Standard Dianetic theory, will be a jumping of chain. Eventually it would have to be sorted out by a Dianetics correction list - if the chain does not go to a valid NED EP.

My conclusion out of this is that the differences between the NED datum "postulate off equals erasure" and the Standard Dianetics datum "Dianetics EP = F/N, Cog, VGIs" are minimal and only in rare situations will make a real difference in session. NED will rather overrun the pc, Standard Dianetics rather underrun him. As overrunning is easier to repair than underrunning, that might be a point for NED.

Nevertheless the question is, from where comes this sudden datum that the chain is held together by the postulate in the basic incident? We don't know, but we must concede that even if maybe the NED HCOBs are mostly or all not written by LRH it is possible that this is a datum which just was found out in research 1978 and changed the tech - actually not the only example where a new datum occured and changed some aspect of the tech.

What is interesting is the HCOB 26 May 1978 I, "Dianetics: Urgent Command Change". This is still a pre-NED bulletin, if only some weeks before NED was released. Besides other points it says under the heading of "Getting the postulates in the basic incident":

"Now and again a pc will run Dianetics whereby they F/N on the basic incident and have VGIs but no cognition has come off. The pc has not fully viewed the postulates in the incident here to obtain full end phenomena.
When this occurs and you have your F/N VGIs yet no cognition is voiced, ask the pc "Was there something that you postulated in that incident." The results will be quite astonishing and the pc will have his or her full end phenomena and that will be it for that chain.
...
There may be more than one postulate in the basic incident. You as the auditor want to get off the postulates in the basic incident accompanied by F/N and VGIs. This is your Dianetic end phenomena. When the pc voices the postulate and has the full end phenomena there is no need to check further."

This can be seen as a precursor to R3RA and actually a transition between R3R and R3RA. It looks probable that the research data which prompted the issue of this bulletin was shortly afterwards completed and led to the datum "postulate off = erasure". How much of this research was done or supervised or at least approved by LRH is another question we currently have no means to answer. However the HCOB 26 May 78 I is signed by "L.Ron Hubbard, Founder, Assisted by Paulette Cohen, LRH Tech Expediter".

A further hint is another direct predecessor of this HCOB, which is HCOB 18 March 1978, "Postulates and engrams". Basically it contains the same data, cautions the auditor to ask for a postulate when the basic is apparently flattened but no full EP. It also explains that "what the pc postulated just before or while under the stress and pain of his engram could be any manner of significance to the pc, but it is of no significance to the Dianetic auditor other than as a means of ensuring he has gotten the full Dianetic EP and has removed all the charge and force in the pc's engram." This HCOB is signed by "L.Ron Hubbard, Founder, As assisted by CS-5" who, according to the last line, must have had the initials JE.

It would be interesting to find out who JE was and ask him or Paulette Cohen about the matter of how much LRH was involved in the research of NED.

However the datum that an engram can be erased by finding a postulate is not new and actually stems from LRH: In his SHSBC lecture of June 12, 1962, LRH mentions that an engram is immediately preceded by a postulate and you can theoretically dissolve the engram by finding this postulate.

But let's take a look at the next issue:

 

2. Redefinition of Somatics

 
Caspar's point that the re-definition of "somatics" by introducing the word "awareness" instead of "feeling" is well taken as this seems a bit odd and unnecessary.

However the HCOB 18 June 1978R, revised 20 September 1978 (and thus later than the revision of the HCOB "Somatics" which Caspar quotes) contains still the original definition which includes the word "feeling". So whoever cared to change the definition did not deem it so important that all mentions of the definition were revised.
 
This goes along with Caspar's conclusion which I would support that after all the change is not very meaningful and the preassessment categories are covered by the old definition as well as the new one anyhow.
The next issue is certainly more relevant:
   

3. Drop of principle of unburdening by going through incidents once only and running with minimum TA    


Here  Caspar contends that  the  NED rule that you should leave an incident even after the first going through when the TA rises is a false datum because earlier it was a stable datum to go through at least twice before checking for an earlier similar incident.

To be exact, the HCOB 26 June 1978RA II, "Routine 3RA, Engram Running by chains", states:

"Ordinarily one runs an incident through twice to unburden it and allow the pc to locate eralier incidents on the chain. However, the TA rising on Step 9 is an indication that there is something earlier. If the auditor observes the TA rising, he should ask the pc if there is an earlier incident, using in the command the exact same somatic or feeling used in Step One. If there is no earlier incident he asks if there is an earlier beginning.
An auditor should never solidify a pc's bank by putting him through an incident TWICE, when by observation of the TA it is clear that the incident has gone more solid by the end of the FIRST rund through. Checking for an earlier incident after the first run through (if the TA has risen) is the solution to this."

At first sight this seems to be a direct contradiction to the earlier tech, taking into account the references Caspar quotes, e.g. HCOB 23 April 1969 II "Dianetics, Erasure, How to attain", where it says that only after the second time through you should ask for an earlier similar.

However one of the first references on how to run R3R is the SHSBC lecture 11 June 1963, "Engram chain running". It explains in great detail what happens while you are running a chain of engrams, e.g. that you tap each engram on the chain for charge by running it, until the earlier engram on the chain comes into view etc. (I recommend listening to this lecture very much.) In it LRH also talks about that very question of how often should you go through an engram before going earlier:

"But to finish this incident off, just move them through it again. They’ll pick up some more stuff. That’s the time they’re going to tell you there’s something earlier. And it doesn’t much matter how many times you run them through an incident. Less than twice is suspect. That’s maybe a little careless. But might very well – if the thing appeared to be awful gummy, and so forth, and messed up – once would be plenty. There’s where judgment comes in. More than twice? Well, you’re getting into questionable ground – very questionable ground. Trying to chug them into it and make them have more view of it or more picture or get more event out of it or do something else with it than they can do at that particular time? Nah! Verboten. It’ll turn up in an earlier incident or you got no business running engrams. That’s all there is to that."

In other words:  when the incident clearly solidifies on the first run, "once would be plenty". Absolutely okay to ask for an earlier similar in this case.

Thus the "new" NED rule is not so new after all and in accordance with earlier tech. However if we take serious what LRH said - that judgement comes in at that point - we should be aware that we speak of a distinct solidifying. If you apply the NED rule so mechanically that if the TA at the end of step 9 is 0.1 higher than at step 1 you must find something earlier, you are overdoing it. The datum that an incident should be run twice to unburden it enough should in this case take precedence. You will hardly damage the pc, but very probably help him considerably by getting the necessary TA off the incident. But if the TA rises by 1.0 or something like that - there is no doubt you should immediately ask for earlier.

Thus my conclusion on all three counts is: R3RA is not such a fundamental change compared to Standard Dianetics, and none of the three points discussed make a clear case against NED. To discard NED utterly based on these points would not only be overrating them but also hardly find a broad agreement amongst those auditors and C/Ses of the Free Zone who hold with Standard Tech. I find it essential that we agree at least on the major points of what Standard Tech is, and to cut out such a major piece of tech as NED is we need more convincing arguments I feel, even if there is some suspicion on how much of it is genuine LRH.

If anything I could say that NED seems to be an attempt to make the auditing of Dianetics more mechanical and thus more easy to teach it to new auditors. To use judgement in the question of EPs and in the question of when to ask for earlier you might need more background than what you get on the modern NED checksheet. Thus I find it a very good idea to train auditors on the checksheet which is used in most Ron's Orgs which is a combination of the NED course and the HSDC, thus containing all the "good old" Dianetics bulletins of 1969 and giving the auditor a solid background and understanding of Dianetics.

Heimdal
                           
Caspar's article about New Era Dianetics and Standard Dianetics

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