Golden Age of Tech Training - from the opposite side

[Carmel]

That makes sense.... I remember one OT being very upset on the metering course, saying that all her solo auditing was now suspect because she couldnt pass her video. She couldnt understand how she had done so well if she was dealing with things that actually read "latently" or "prior".

To answer someone elses question before, as a GAT auditor, when I listened to Ron auditing, it was obvious he was doing things MUCH differently to how we were, even in his TRs. But I always figured they were recorded while he was still researching and he had such fantastic beingness and presence that he could get away with doing something other than "model session" we were trained in.

We used some of the procedures in those older lectures, when we could add it to procedures in later HCOB's as opposed to procedures that may have contradicted "tech" in the later HCOB"s. Things seemed to get stricter and stricter as time went on. If ya didn't have to "think with" what you were doing as an auditor, and if everything became so rote, then it's a wonder that the levels stayed in place. It was getting pretty rote in the '80's. By the time GAT was in place, it was way way worse it seemed.

Sorry to pick your brains, but I'm interested - in your op you said that you were horrified and/or lost respect for what you saw that pre GAT auditors had done (or something similar to that). Can you recall what sort of stuff, and if there was something in particular that made you think it was so non-standard?

Yep, Ron's comm cycle in some of his lectures was a shocker. And, he wrote the basic auditing series before some of those lectures I think. That irked me at the time, but I justified it away as usual.

Dear oh dear - looking at it all now, what a hoot! Glad you are here, Cantsay!

 

[scooter]

In May 1996 I went to FSO as the Senior C/S for both day and foundation - despite not being posted as a C/S at the time - story for another time.

We were gathered in the ballroom and DM briefed us on what HE'd discovered recently.

One of HIS discoveries concerned F/Ns

SHOCK HORROR - HE had found that "some auditors" were calling an "F/N" on just one swing of the needle.

HE told us that every one of these auditors were "carefully sec-checked" on this and "none of them really believed what they were seeing were F/Ns."

My BS meter went off at this point and that stuck with me for ages until I was willing to look at HIM being wrong - at which point the whole datum evaporated.

DM "explained" (yes that's right kids - HE explained to the senior C/Ses from around the planet) that "rythmic" has to mean at least three swings as one or two swings do not a rythmn make.

He also briefed us on what he'd found with instant reads and proceeded to "educate' us using a question like "Do you like cats?

Per DM, the "major thought" is communicated when the last sound is uttered so it's DURING the 'sssss" sound at the end of "catssss?"

NOT at the end of the "ssssss" sound as we poor squirrel fools had been doing all these years.

We then got to write up our O/Ws for not finding this out-Tech as anyone of us could've found all this out just by looking through the references per HIM.

Doing O/Ws with DM, Norm Starkey et al prowling around picking up O/Ws at random and reading them was no fun.

Then we got to drill with students from our orgs on this now-standard procedure while DM's 30-odd army of RTC kids watched us like hawks to make sure we "got" it.

Auditing from that point for me was hell - I ignored the new "instant read" thing as it wasn't what Hubbard had said and I surrepticiously called F/Ns on one or two swings just like I'd done before but when no-one was watching.

I used PC indicators as the senior datum - to hell with the meter three swings rule.

I think I'd only ever seen one of those - and that was on someone so blown out they would never get into session for a month.

 

[scooter]

One other event in that madness stands out - we were all trooped in to watch the e-meter reads movie and all the students who'd been there during this "evolution" were also ther calling out the reads.

When the F/N came on screen, a few called out"F/N" after one swing.

Joannie Dunn from Chicago and a few others yelled out "Wait for it" and, we all sat there and chorused AFTER the third swing "F/N"

 

[Panda Termint]

<...snip>
When the F/N came on screen, a few called out"F/N" after one swing.

Joannie Dunn from Chicago and a few others yelled out "Wait for it" and, we all sat there and chorused AFTER the third swing "F/N"

Scooter, This should make you laugh; I once got chitted for J & D because I was quietly whistling the tune "Dixie" during one of those pregnant pauses at the Examiner.

I swear it was unintentional!

The chit was cancelled after I protested that I was just so blown out from the session I'd just had, I wasn't thinking at all, just being there enjoying myself.

 

[Feral]

One other event in that madness stands out - we were all trooped in to watch the e-meter reads movie and all the students who'd been there during this "evolution" were also ther calling out the reads.

When the F/N came on screen, a few called out"F/N" after one swing.

Joannie Dunn from Chicago and a few others yelled out "Wait for it" and, we all sat there and chorused AFTER the third swing "F/N"

I recall both the new and old films. The F/Ns were incredibly different on the two films.

Lost our way?:confused2:

 

[Dulloldfart]

I did it with ease - in a cram - after auditing for awhile and after listening to Ron audit a PC on the OT Doctorate Course. The easy conversation, being in communication with the person in front of you, knowing your leter and knowing that it works, guiding the PC, being totally willing to indicate a wrong indication, asking for the read, all the tools present and accounted for made it quick, clean, precise and monsterously accurate. It didn't matter who the coach was, as long as they weren't actively reading on something else.

Given that, on the emeter drills in training, I passed it - eventually. It works if you have all of the basics in place. As a raw auditor it is a very steep learning curve.

However, once that is overcome, and you have a couple of hundred hours of experience, the drill is truly a breeze. The key for me though was that PDC tape, and listening to the old man back in the fifties, when he was just winging it, and 90% of what he was accomplishing was just clean communication.

My experience, my opinions.

A couple of hundred hours of experience.

Of the drill?



Paul

 

[Dulloldfart]

Auditing from that point for me was hell - I ignored the new "instant read" thing as it wasn't what Hubbard had said and I surrepticiously called F/Ns on one or two swings just like I'd done before but when no-one was watching.

I used PC indicators as the senior datum - to hell with the meter three swings rule.

I think I'd only ever seen one of those - and that was on someone so blown out they would never get into session for a month.

Is this a common experience with auditors?

I remember basic HCOBs talking about "the F/N getting to the examiner." C/S Series 25 maybe. The idea I got from reading that was after a good session the pc would F/N away for several minutes continuously, from when the auditor said "End of session" through the pc walking to the examiner, waiting his turn if needed (or I guess alternatively the auditor/pc running around asking "could you give me an exam?"), sitting down in the exam chair, picking up the (hopefully warm) cans, and the examiner announcing the F/N. NOT that there was a swing or a few of F/N at session end, and then a few minutes later the pc would F/N briefly at the Examiner by putting attention on the great session or the Qual Sec's tits or whatever he felt like.

I always felt so invalidated as an auditor or word-clearer because even when the session went great the F/N had usually died before the pc put the cans down. Wow.

Plus, per the recent Examiner thread, when there was no-one overlooking the Examiner's meter, no video, pretty much anything got called as an F/N as long as the pc wasn't really BIs.

Paul

 

[Mark A. Baker]

Interesting, Ron was a pre-GAT auditor. What do post GAT people think of that?

Well, ... clearly they must have cancelled his certs.


Mark A. Baker

 

[uniquemand]

He's a cancelled source. Source is now Miscavige.

 

[cantsay]

We used some of the procedures in those older lectures, when we could add it to procedures in later HCOB's as opposed to procedures that may have contradicted "tech" in the later HCOB"s. Things seemed to get stricter and stricter as time went on. If ya didn't have to "think with" what you were doing as an auditor, and if everything became so rote, then it's a wonder that the levels stayed in place. It was getting pretty rote in the '80's. By the time GAT was in place, it was way way worse it seemed.

Sorry to pick your brains, but I'm interested - in your op you said that you were horrified and/or lost respect for what you saw that pre GAT auditors had done (or something similar to that). Can you recall what sort of stuff, and if there was something in particular that made you think it was so non-standard?

Yep, Ron's comm cycle in some of his lectures was a shocker. And, he wrote the basic auditing series before some of those lectures I think. That irked me at the time, but I justified it away as usual.

Dear oh dear - looking at it all now, what a hoot! Glad you are here, Cantsay!

I cant remember specifics, but since a lot of people I dealt with hadnt been audited for quite a while, Id go through their folders and end up with a list as long as my arm of things that hadnt been handled properly. Stuff like not checking buttons properly (or at all), having a pc go bad and chatting to the pc aimlessly instead of doing the appropriate repair list etc. To me all these things were stuff that you should know to do properly if you knew all the appropriate HCOBS - pre GAT auditors should have known this stuff. They werent any "big" errors as such, but annoying when you think of the time wasted that the pcs paid for.

For the record though, these were auditors who had trained a LONG time before, were fairly old ducks, and I doubt they were "standard" even before GAT was thought of. But I got the idea at the time that ALL pre-GAT auditors must have been like that, and yeah I was horrified.

But hey, their pcs were still happy.

 

[cantsay]

Ron was 110% Standard

Zinj

Nope. He wasnt, according to GAT. His model session and comm cycle was shocking at times. But like Carmen said, you explain it away.

As people who have known him have said, his presence and "altitude" was such that his auditing was still extremely successful.

 

[cantsay]

In May 1996 I went to FSO as the Senior C/S for both day and foundation - despite not being posted as a C/S at the time - story for another time.

We were gathered in the ballroom and DM briefed us on what HE'd discovered recently.

One of HIS discoveries concerned F/Ns

SHOCK HORROR - HE had found that "some auditors" were calling an "F/N" on just one swing of the needle.

HE told us that every one of these auditors were "carefully sec-checked" on this and "none of them really believed what they were seeing were F/Ns."

My BS meter went off at this point and that stuck with me for ages until I was willing to look at HIM being wrong - at which point the whole datum evaporated.

DM "explained" (yes that's right kids - HE explained to the senior C/Ses from around the planet) that "rythmic" has to mean at least three swings as one or two swings do not a rythmn make.

He also briefed us on what he'd found with instant reads and proceeded to "educate' us using a question like "Do you like cats?

Per DM, the "major thought" is communicated when the last sound is uttered so it's DURING the 'sssss" sound at the end of "catssss?"

NOT at the end of the "ssssss" sound as we poor squirrel fools had been doing all these years.

We then got to write up our O/Ws for not finding this out-Tech as anyone of us could've found all this out just by looking through the references per HIM.

Doing O/Ws with DM, Norm Starkey et al prowling around picking up O/Ws at random and reading them was no fun.

Then we got to drill with students from our orgs on this now-standard procedure while DM's 30-odd army of RTC kids watched us like hawks to make sure we "got" it.

Auditing from that point for me was hell - I ignored the new "instant read" thing as it wasn't what Hubbard had said and I surrepticiously called F/Ns on one or two swings just like I'd done before but when no-one was watching.

I used PC indicators as the senior datum - to hell with the meter three swings rule.

I think I'd only ever seen one of those - and that was on someone so blown out they would never get into session for a month.

Jeez Louise.... what a balls up.

For us, the simulators showed a "fleeting FN" as sweep/sweep/start to move the other way but become a clean needle instead.

I have to agree that one sweep is not an FN. All pcs I had would have a stable, constant FN that easily made it to the examiner. If it just did one sweep, or one and a half, I would continue the process another command or three and voila - nice stable FN. I think the bulletin on indicators covered that. Generally a "one sweep" was just as the pc was beginning to realise something - if you called it then, you distract the pc.

With the instant reads - it was a big thing to get my head around. It was "Instant" when it read at the point the pc got the whole concept you were saying, so at the end of the last syllable. What got confusing was priors - if you were asking something plural or with a long last syllable "do you like volcanoes? Its easy to jump the gun. Do you like a Catalpa? Easy, the Pa sound is short. This was the kind of problems most people had with the course, being able to differntiate between split second differences.

 

[GreyLensman]

That makes sense.... I remember one OT being very upset on the metering course, saying that all her solo auditing was now suspect because she couldnt pass her video. She couldnt understand how she had done so well if she was dealing with things that actually read "latently" or "prior".

To answer someone elses question before, as a GAT auditor, when I listened to Ron auditing, it was obvious he was doing things MUCH differently to how we were, even in his TRs. But I always figured they were recorded while he was still researching and he had such fantastic beingness and presence that he could get away with doing something other than "model session" we were trained in.

Gawd. I am so glad I got the hell out before this crap. Tech Degrades promoted to being the new "Standard". And the public pays yet again for it all over again. Bunch of bloody bullshit.

 

[GreyLensman]

Jeez Louise.... what a balls up.

For us, the simulators showed a "fleeting FN" as sweep/sweep/start to move the other way but become a clean needle instead.

I have to agree that one sweep is not an FN. All pcs I had would have a stable, constant FN that easily made it to the examiner. If it just did one sweep, or one and a half, I would continue the process another command or three and voila - nice stable FN. I think the bulletin on indicators covered that. Generally a "one sweep" was just as the pc was beginning to realise something - if you called it then, you distract the pc.

With the instant reads - it was a big thing to get my head around. It was "Instant" when it read at the point the pc got the whole concept you were saying, so at the end of the last syllable. What got confusing was priors - if you were asking something plural or with a long last syllable "do you like volcanoes? Its easy to jump the gun. Do you like a Catalpa? Easy, the Pa sound is short. This was the kind of problems most people had with the course, being able to differntiate between split second differences.

I would agree - one sweep up was charge being located and brought into view - one sweep down charge blowing. A free needle, idle, uninfluenced, gradually wider, that in my experience is a classic F/N. I'm amazed these guys ever get any release at all using GAT - oh... wait. I get it.

LRH said on a tape that German was a hell of a language to work in because the verb was placed at the end, so all the kick came with that last bit of the concept, after everything else was assembled.

It seems to me this GAT stuff would promote robotic total dependence on the meter (and from what I can tell, these things are still overpriced P'sOS), and negate consulting the preclear. The good part is this will wildly bypass charge all over the place, resulting in a totally ARCXen field and public.

 

[cantsay]

Is this a common experience with auditors?

I remember basic HCOBs talking about "the F/N getting to the examiner." C/S Series 25 maybe. The idea I got from reading that was after a good session the pc would F/N away for several minutes continuously, from when the auditor said "End of session" through the pc walking to the examiner, waiting his turn if needed (or I guess alternatively the auditor/pc running around asking "could you give me an exam?"), sitting down in the exam chair, picking up the (hopefully warm) cans, and the examiner announcing the F/N. NOT that there was a swing or a few of F/N at session end, and then a few minutes later the pc would F/N briefly at the Examiner by putting attention on the great session or the Qual Sec's tits or whatever he felt like.

I always felt so invalidated as an auditor or word-clearer because even when the session went great the F/N had usually died before the pc put the cans down. Wow.

Plus, per the recent Examiner thread, when there was no-one overlooking the Examiner's meter, no video, pretty much anything got called as an F/N as long as the pc wasn't really BIs.

Paul

For us it was the opposite. FNs were usually very stable, usually with the pc blathering on about what they had just realised. I think to that degree it was an improvement. One preclear I had would get floating TA regularly - with him his needle would float just as he would crack a smile, youd ask another command and bam, big realisation and his TA would float! If I had called one sweep FNs that would have never happened.

The examiner was very strict on what an FN was (I was grateful to Lynley for that), and an exam could take a little while if the pc was distracted, but it was still rare to get redtags. Pcs never had to think of the examiners body parts unless they had just been sec checked or something...

 

[cantsay]

bah, just realised Im probably invalidating the hell out of a lot of people. Please excuse me if that is the case!! I guess Im still pretty defensive about my training...

 

[GreyLensman]

In May 1996 I went to FSO as the Senior C/S for both day and foundation - despite not being posted as a C/S at the time - story for another time.

We were gathered in the ballroom and DM briefed us on what HE'd discovered recently.

One of HIS discoveries concerned F/Ns

SHOCK HORROR - HE had found that "some auditors" were calling an "F/N" on just one swing of the needle.

HE told us that every one of these auditors were "carefully sec-checked" on this and "none of them really believed what they were seeing were F/Ns."

My BS meter went off at this point and that stuck with me for ages until I was willing to look at HIM being wrong - at which point the whole datum evaporated.

DM "explained" (yes that's right kids - HE explained to the senior C/Ses from around the planet) that "rythmic" has to mean at least three swings as one or two swings do not a rythmn make.

He also briefed us on what he'd found with instant reads and proceeded to "educate' us using a question like "Do you like cats?

Per DM, the "major thought" is communicated when the last sound is uttered so it's DURING the 'sssss" sound at the end of "catssss?"

NOT at the end of the "ssssss" sound as we poor squirrel fools had been doing all these years.

We then got to write up our O/Ws for not finding this out-Tech as anyone of us could've found all this out just by looking through the references per HIM.

Doing O/Ws with DM, Norm Starkey et al prowling around picking up O/Ws at random and reading them was no fun.

Then we got to drill with students from our orgs on this now-standard procedure while DM's 30-odd army of RTC kids watched us like hawks to make sure we "got" it.

Auditing from that point for me was hell - I ignored the new "instant read" thing as it wasn't what Hubbard had said and I surrepticiously called F/Ns on one or two swings just like I'd done before but when no-one was watching.

I used PC indicators as the senior datum - to hell with the meter three swings rule.

I think I'd only ever seen one of those - and that was on someone so blown out they would never get into session for a month.

Three sweeps is bullocks. You wait three sweeps before looking at your PC and you've just lost control of the session and abrogated it out to a fucking meter. Total incorrect horseshit.

Sweep... idle uninfluenced. Look at your PC while keeping the meter dial, tone arm in peripheral sight. F/N his indicators come in like a freight train, and the itsa line starts, or in some cases, he goes completely silent but grinning like a complete fool. The needle will continue to float if that's what it is, and you'll see the guy come free, or dive back into his case and overrun, or whatever, but you'll have the session in hand.

PC indicators - exactly. What ever happened to all the data from LRH about the meter being a tool, but secondary to the communication between the auditor and PC?

DM is a moron. Hear that, Davie? You are an idiot.

 

[GreyLensman]

bah, just realised Im probably invalidating the hell out of a lot of people. Please excuse me if that is the case!! I guess Im still pretty defensive about my training...

Invalidated? Not in the slightest. I hope you don't take this as any invalidation of your certainty.

You get what works for you. If you are going to keep working with it I would suggest that you go back and get how LRH communicated, not the physical working, but the comm cycle, the control, the willingness to freeform the elements of communication - PDCs were the key for me to a comfortableness and a sureness - I was completely willing to make the meter a secondary tool and communicate first. Not because what you are doing is wrong, but because you can be better. More comfortable, more certain of your auditing. That was part of the magic of the Briefing Course - an understanding of the depth of what you were doing.

I would think that this style of auditing in training would be infuriating to me - I learned to audit differently. I would also have been through this kind of crap before (remember BTB's and BPL's? Board Technical Bulletins - gawd help us) where the tech went off the rails and official Scientology looked like morons again.

But this would certainly work to a point. I just think it emphasizes meter over PC, roteness over understanding. The kind of thing as a supervisor I used to stamp out at Academy Levels and force a deeper understanding and certainty. This also brings up that the people, the rank and file, tend to - tend to make a huge difference, a great supervisor, or intern sup, an exceptional cramming officer or qual sec, these people can make it work and seem palatable.

I really, really appreciate your bringing out your viewpoint of this, and I hope you don't take this as inval directed towards yourself at all. I found auditing to be, mostly, magical, and if you did, I hope you keep that.

 

[Carmel]

bah, just realised Im probably invalidating the hell out of a lot of people. Please excuse me if that is the case!! I guess Im still pretty defensive about my training...

No worries on what you are saying, I don't think you are invalidating anybody. You have said you did well with your training, I get why you may defensive about it (as I am with what I did).

In regard to the F/N, I have seen the F/N phenomenon you describe, but to have that as the only phenomenon acceptable as an F/N, would be a crime to many of us who trained and audited pre GAT.

As an exaggerated example:

- The pc who has just lost their spouse. There is usually a fair amount of charge over something like that. As an auditor ya try to help peel it off in layers, bit by bit. Ya may see the F/N get a little bit better as the session goes on, and ya may end up accomplishing what you wanted to with and for the pc, but ya won't see the pc skipping off to exams with any kind of three sweep F/N, cause he or she has still lost their spouse.

- The pc has got out-int, out-lists and out ruds up the ying yang. Ya work on peeling off the charge bit by bit. The more ya handle, the better the F/N gets may be, but if ya couldn't take those "fleeting F/N's" at the beginning, you'd never have the chance to unsnarl the pc, let alone end up with that F/N phenomenon that you have described with the "three sweeps" (which would often be, once your goal with the pc had been accomplished).

Needless to say, this F/N arbitrary was such a shocker to so many when it came in and was enforced, and as a result many had no choice but to quit.

 

[Pascal]

FN, FU

fucking great post...

DM will be history soon enough...

He's old and his body failing. No replacement in view.

I'm already living in a DM-free future.

Join me?