The "S & D" process is an important scientological procedure which
addresses an individual's particular vulnerability to another's
malicious or supposedly malicious intentions. It is indicated when a
participant repeatedly loses the acknowledged gains they have already
had from processing, or behaves in a highly unreliable manner. ("S &
D," stands for "search and discovery")
This is the story of the development of that procedure, with some
profound insights, by John McMaster, and is reprinted from The Heretic,
Issue X. (See "Bon Voyage to John McMaster" in the Free Spirit 90.) -
Hank Levin:
***
I would like to discuss the development of S & D for the
implications it had in the subsequent development of scientology
technology. Had it not been designed the way it was, things might have
gone a little differently.
Late summer, 1965. The mesage read: "Ron wants you to bring six of
your best review auditors to his office at quarter past five today, and
would you get it all organized?" When we were all there, he said that
he'd gotten us there for a specific reason, and the reason was to evolve
a particular process which he wanted to call "Search and Discovery."
Now, in the processing that we were doing then, which was mainly
the power processes and power plus, we were getting some cases moving
magnificently fast, others sort of medium, and some cases moving very
slowly.
He said that there must be some factor that was sort of impinging
on these cases that were moving slowly, and this process was to be
called Search and Discovery simply because it was to search for that
which was impinging on the slow gain case and the no case gain, to
search for that and then discover it.
And he wanted us to evolve a technology whereby this could be done
effectively.
We got together and decided that it would be a good idea to have a
listing process to start off with on the search side of it, and then we
would discover an item.
We decided the listing question would be sonething along the lines
of "Who or what is causing difficulty?"
We made a list and then we'd get whatever the item was, and then
put the item into a Represent ("Who or what would item represent?"), and
then list away. If the item on the first list had been a person, one
blew the charge off that person by getting the Represent out of it.
And on this "Who or what would item represent?" the PC invariably
found a "What" in relation to his own behaviour or his own conditions of
existence that got restimulated by the actions of the other person and
caused what appeared to be the symptoms of a "Potential Trouble Source,"
as it was later called.
It was something that the person had in his own makeup, his own
behaviour pattern, his own mental mass, that had a sort of magnetism for
the behaviour of a certain person.
The other person did something, and this particular thing, in the
whole pattern of the PC, would cause an upset and prevent the PC from
looking as clearly as he or she might look, from wanting to win, from
doing whatever one was expecting the person to do.
So we ran this listing process and the represent process, and we
got what we got, and took the results to Hubbard. And as I said,
invariably it was a "What". And you can't declare a "What" that exists
in the magnetic field of the PC to be a suppressive person.
There was a tremendous improvement in the PCs because they found
out that in actual fact, when they were so-called "being the effect" or
"being suppressed" by someone else, it was because of themselves and
something that they had that had compelled them to become the effect of
the other person's behaviour.
But there was another thing some of them found out. Some people
found out that in their behaviour patterns they did things and behaved
in such a way that they compelled the other person to commit suppressive
acts towards them.
For instance, here's me. And, not during the auditing session but
in my everyday life, I am doing something with a regularity that compels
another, who also has something in his magnetic field that my behaviour
restimulates, to be suppressive towards me, and I am in actual fact
causing it.
So there were two aspects that people began to find in this
auditing:
1) they had something in their own space that got restimulated by
another person's behaviour, and when they found that and blew it, they
no longer were the effect of that person's behaviour; and
2) they were unknowingly doing something that was compelling the
other person to act suppressively towards them.
And everyone run on this process, with the listing and the
represent, had far more case gain than is gotten from running up to the
ethics officer and disconnecting from a so called suppressive person.
We were really thrilled, because these people, immediately after
having had this kind of S & D process run on them, moved magnificently
on the power processes.
We took the results to Hubbard, and he kind of hemmed and hawed and
told us it was a little bit long-winded and we could do it faster
another way. Eventually he changed the thing down to: "Who is
suppressing you?", and it had to be a person. And when that person was
spotted, the PC had to go to the ethics officer with the folder.
The ethics officer then had to find out whether the person would
"handle or disconnect", and in most cases the ethics officer decided of
his or her volition that the person was incapable of handling and
compelled the person to disconnect.
Now if you look at the history of scientology from that point
onward, late summer-autumn of 1965, what was happening?
Suppressive people were becoming a reality and the ethics officer
was becoming an absolute necessity in any organization in order to
safeguard your technololgy.
Well, nothing can safeguard technology better than perfect
auditing. If you take the process and audit it perfectly, your
technology is established.
Having this via of darting around the corner to the ethics officer
just gives the auditor an out. If he can't quite manage the PC or he
can't quite manage the process, or he can!t quite manage putting the two
together, he always knows he can say "Well it's OK; if I can't quite
manage this then it'll become an ethics matter."
When a person was not moving as quickly as the person ought to be
moving, they then had to have this S & D process, and then automatically
it went onto ethics lines.
So then standard technology was very much involved with ethics; you
couldn't have standard technology without an ethics officer to handle
these particular situations. So the suppressive person became a reality
and the ethics officer became an absolute necessity in order to have the
tech working and standard.
So now the PC disconnects from this "Who" the ethics offlcer
regards as a suppressive person, and yet still intact is the "What" that
predisposed the suppression in the first place. So the PC is still
vulnerable to suppression.
He disconnects, has a bit of relief, and maybe until the end of
that auditing intensive the PC is free from the impact of the other.
But within the makeup of the person, that which predisposes the PC to
being suppressed is untouched.
And the overt act of disconnecting from another, blaming another
for one's own inadequacy, and the fact that one has this predisposition
towards suppression, compounds the felony.
The felony of whatever one has done that makes one vulnerable or
predisposed is still there, and that is compounded by the disconnection,
which creates a heavy ARC break perhaps not only with the person being
disconnected from, but with all the people to whom that person is
connected.
So now you have the compounded felony. That thing which had come
into restimulation in the auditing that should have been run out right
there and then, is now being covered over aby another overt act, the act
of disvconnection. And what does that do? It causes the prolongation
of that condition which predisposed the PC to suppression in the first
place.
S & Ds, such as they are run now, do not give permanent relief or
release from anything. What they do is prolong the agony of potential
suppression. So far from setting a person freer, they are in actual
fact burying,and therefore prolonging the condition that predisposes and
precipitates the suppression.
This "standard technology" is in actual fact ruining the whole
potential of our aims and goals and purposes, because it is pressing out
of sight that which we were fortunate enough to have surface, that thing
that is predisposing the PC to feeling suppressed.
It is a very healthy sign when someone you are auditing suddenly
has problems. So they say they're not making gains. So what? This
indicates to you that something is in restimulation that prevents them
from making gains and achieving their goals. This means you've got
something right there and then, right at the surface, ready to be
handled.
So you can do an S & D, but I suggest that you do it the way we did
it originally, before it was changed to a "Who?" You might get this
thing which has come into restimuation on the first listing, in which
case it's gone. If you have to put it into a Represent list, well,
you'll get a whole lot there.
Now, I didn't do this at the time, but it seems to me that you
could then put in a third question if you do a represent out to another
item and you still haven't blown everything.
You could say, "Now, how do you use so-and-so to make yourself
vulnerable to suppression?", or a question of that nature. Then you
have removed the predisposition to the suppression because that which
was in the magnetic field of the PC that enabled the suppression to
happen will never be there again, unless the PC puts it back. But it
won't be the same one; it'll be another one.
So I hope this sheds a little light on the way and S & D could be
run that could give gain for all time, rather than this temporary relief
by committing an overt act on a fellow being on this planet at the same
time as one is. It's not always such; sometimes one disconnects from
people out of another time.
However, this is just a vast Q & A with reality. The reality is
that somewhere in one's makeup is this predisposition to be suppressed,
and when it is precipitatedd one behaves like a potential trouble
source. So, get out what's in restimulation and remove completely and
forever the chances of being suppressed in that particular way.
That is how we started out on Search and Discovery, and how I feel
it could be done even now. It's not too late, for Heaven's sake! And
we could get in, and do the job properly.
***
On which part? If you remember more or less where, or on which reference. Sometimes it is also hard for me, to remember where, or what. I´m curious.
