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Clearbird Publishing publishes manuals in Standard Clearing Technology.

The present publication, Clearbird's Study Manual, Study and Application forms the doorway to the series. It's a User's Manual in R. Hubbard's Study Technology. It is a textbook version, edited, illustrated and streamlined for use of modern students and readers.

The basic technology is the same; the communication of it is in its own language and form. In that respect it can be compared to books you can buy on popular computer programs. In any book store you will find a variety of books on 'Windows', 'Corel Draw', 'Adobe Illustrator' and 'Lotus', and just about any other major software program. These alternative manuals are often better than the software houses' own provided manuals. If for no other reason because they have to fight an uphill battle and compete for popularity and readers. They do that by being easy to read and understand and by bringing many illustrations. They don't see it as their mission to rewrite the computer programs themselves, of course.

In a similar way we have not seen it as our purpose to rewrite the technology itself. But the manual has been written and edited with this very same study technology in mind. There are many illustrations and a full glossary that carefully has been edited with beginning students in mind. In the web edition this glossary will appear on your screen instantly if you click on any illustration.

Since R. Hubbard didn't approve of any re-writes of his technology we have given the problems connected with the communication and form of this book ample thought. We have paid great attention not to change a workable technology. But media and methods of communication have changed drastically since 1964 when R. Hubbard first released most of this technology. At that time computers were practically unknown, the internet was science fiction. Illustrations in a textbook were at best in black-and-white. In technical textbooks there would be a few diagrams. Any book with too many illustrations would make it a book written for dilettantes. The relative new invention of TV was a black-and-white experience in private homes. In UK, where Hubbard lived at the time, color TV was just being introduced by BBC in 1964.

The whole media landscape has changed drastically since then. That the Study  Technology has any relevance today is actually a statement of its basic strengths. 

The manual mentions in Keeping Technology Working ten points that have to be watched. The first point is to have the correct technology. For anyone to "Have the correct technology" it has to exist in accessible and contemporary  form, be it language or graphic presentation. Today the Internet is the way to publish and distribute information widely and inexpensively. 

The use of pictures is essential in keeping a student's interest and also one of the things the Study Technology itself stresses. It provides "mass to the significance". We are thus practicing what we preach in the Study Manual. The student should have no problem clearing up any misunderstood words as he goes along. For any word he or she doesn't understand all the student has to do is to click on a picture and a glossary with any of the specially defined words will appear. This, in combination with a common English dictionary, should make the manual easy to understand. The pictures are chosen to help the students get the concepts more easily. You will notice that most pictures are used several or many times. The inspiration for that is the use of Demo Kits. By reusing pictures and replace the picture text to fit we have been able to illustrate most basic concepts in a doable fashion. The language is held relatively simple in order to avoid too many words have to be looked up. It is in the manual stressed that the information should go from the written page to the student. This puts great demands upon the textbook writer. It also follows, for this to be possible, that the communication of the materials has to be worked on and developed continuously to actually communicate to contemporary readers. We have a very open line regarding anything that appears difficult. This is continuously worked on, not to change the technology, but to actually make it possible for students to get all their questions answered in written form.

We have chosen to make the Study Technology available on the Internet for free. In addition we have a very liberal copyright on the manual in order to allow it to be used. We hope you as a student or course supervisor or casual reader will enjoy! 

C. Bird
The Editor.

 

Before We Decided to Publish
Below is our footnote to "How Technology Gets Altered". It explains in greater detail the process we went through before we decided to publish this manual:

A Clearbird Footnote
The written materials of the technology can be compared with software code. Small errors can cause the program not to run or do mysterious things. Misunderstoods can cause similar phenomena in the student's mind. You may not agree with the apparently authoritative attitude in "Keeping Technology Working" and "How Technology Gets Altered" but the rules certainly apply to students and general practitioners. Since the field of the mind and the human spirit are so opinionated, and many constitutions guarantee your right to hold any opinion, it has to be stressed that a technology in this field is something new. It's a technology and as such there is little room for opinion. It is as a technology based on natural law and axioms and doing it wrongly will punish the practitioner in form of 'no results' or 'bad results'. The technology is under attack from many quarters, individuals, and schools of thought. It has to hold its ground and defend itself against being mixed up and made unworkable.

A textbook, such as this one and Clearbird's Manual in Standard Clearing Technology, are by some seen as a violation of these issues.  We have published the manuals as User's Manuals in the existing technology. The manuals have been scrutinized by experts; any unworkable bits and pieces have been ironed out. In case of any doubts we still refer the reader to R. Hubbard's works. The rule "If it isn't written it isn't true", then, also applies to students of Clearbird's Manuals. It prevents confusions and conflicting instructions. The student is only given one 'software program'; all the instructions, advice and any modifications are in recorded form. Misunderstoods can be found and handled. There are no attempts to rewrite the technology as technology. But, as with any software program, the practical rendition and the manuals need to be debugged and updated regularly just to be able to be understood by the users. The attempt is to communicate the existing technology to hopefully many new users and practitioners. 

There is new research taking place in this field. We support that. The technology is a workable technology, not necessarily perfect. This research is done by true professionals that have practiced the existing technology for years and years. Clearbird's manuals do not contain any of this research as it is outside the scope of a basic textbook. The basics of the technology are sound and solid and that is what a student has to learn first; it's a long and hard study all by itself. We have thus concentrated on the basic technology and have taken great care of that no alterations of the technology itself are accidentally introduced.

C. Bird

 

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