ADVICE AND WARNINGS

This is a "beta" release. It is based on a great deal of knowledge and experience and is expected to produce good results, but it is probably not perfect.

Read it, understand it, and try it, but don't worship it.

And write up your experiences for others.

People are different. What is easy for one can be hard for another and vise versa. On the first pass through this book, some things will be too difficult and can be skipped. Other things may not run deeply enough to produce stable results.

The most important thing is to keep moving forward, not expecting too much or being too pedantic about the matter. Count on doing a second pass to run these materials fully.

But once a process does start running, don't drop it in the middle. You can read a lot of theory and even try things with little liability. But if something really starts happening on a process, you need to finish it or else the half run thing will hold your attention and start dragging you back like a boat anchor. If you accumulate a few of these, you will probably start to bog down and the solution is to go back and finish what you started.

The general rule is that if a process is producing change (in other words, something is happening), you keep running it because there is more that can be achieved with it. Even more important, as you begin digging something out, you are only looking at it partway and that can give you some misleading ideas.

For example, let's say that there was a time when you were a little child when you were afraid that there was a monster in the closet. And you imagined the monster in gruesome detail and then suppressed the entire thing because it was so horrible.

Then, while running some process, you begin to halfway remember this thing because the mental barrier that you had blocked it off with has begun to dissolve. The first picture that becomes visible would be this gruesome monster that you invented and a feeling of fear. If you stop at that moment, you might leave yourself feeling a bit afraid and with the weird idea that your childhood home was actually inhabited by monsters.

Since it was you who stirred up the old fear, it would fade fairly quickly. You could get yourself feeling better just by looking around the room a bit. But you might have this strange half memory that there had been a monster in your house when you were little.

If you had just run a few more commands of the processes, you would have seen that it was a monster that you had imagined during your childhood and would have had a good laugh about it.

So if something does turn on while running a processes, keep running the process until you get through it. You should feel good when you finish running a process.

You should work through the book in order. The early chapters provide processes which are useful as safety nets when doing the more advanced ones and you are expected to build up skill and understanding as you go along. This doesn't mean that you have to do every process in a thorough manner, but it does mean that you should have some understanding of the things presented and should have success with at least some of the processes that are presented.

Ideally, you should have access to a professional who can help you along and keep you dusted off with an occasional session to clean up mistakes and difficulties.

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing (1997), the orthodox Church of Scientology (CofS) is at war with the various splinter groups (Knowledgism, Dynamism, Dianasis, Ability Centers, Clearing Centers, Avatar, Ron's Org, Identics, Trom, and many others) which are collectively known as the freezone.

Most of these groups (including the CofS itself) have many trained people who are capable of doing general cleanup and repair actions (often called "reviews") which would greatly aid one's progress in doing this book.

But there is some prejudice against self auditing and various fixed ideas about what processes should be run and in what manner. This is most especially held by the CofS itself which currently believes only in using the "standard tech" that evolved in the late 1960s and which represents only about ten percent of Hubbard's work and allows for no further research or extensions.

The freezone practices vary as to how much they carried forward from the CofS and what further extensions or revisions they have applied and which prejudices they retain.

So for now, you will have to see who would be willing to help you on this road and who would push you down some other path.

If you yourself are already a profession, I think that you will be able to move through the book quickly and get a great deal of results from it. The book does not limit itself to what Scientology calls "low level" processes. It is a new, more balanced approach that uses mild versions of the most advanced processes right from the start.

Professionals who have already been trained in Scientology techniques should read the appendix first for advice on adjusting standard techniques for use in self clearing. 

One problem for the novice is learning the actual skills involved in processing oneself. It is not actually very difficult but there is some degree of judgment and understanding necessary. And as you practice this, you will gain a feel for certain things (such as how long to continue a process) which can only be developed by experience.

To enable you to get started quickly and develop some experience, the early chapters only introduce the minimum amount of technical expertise necessary to run the processes at all.

This means that things which you learn in the later chapters will help you do a better job on the processes given in the first chapters. This is another reason for taking a second pass through the book. Things which did not produce significant results on the first pass may turn out to be much more effective once you have a greater degree of skill and understanding.

Of course people who are already trained can use all the techniques that they are familiar with.

Another difficulty facing the novice is that he cannot handle some specific thing out of sequence even though it might be giving him trouble. A professional would, for example, be able to deal with a specific upset that was troubling the person well before the person was ready to do a general handling on the subject of upsets.

This means that you might have to set aside things that are currently bothering you or pick good moments when you are feeling less troubled. Eventually you should be able to handle anything, but that might be a good way down the road. So you do the best you can.

Again, the advice is to go through the book lightly the first time. This lets you pick up things that are bothering you and take some weight off of them . You could think of this as stripping off a surface layer. After that you can push these things much deeper on a second pass.

If you have had professional Scientology processing, some of the chapters may address materials that you have already been processed on extensively. In those cases, you may wish to review the chapter for background information but should skip the processing unless you feel that more can be done in the area.

However, you should not skip the beginning chapters or jump to the chapter that matches the last Scientology processes that you completed successfully because this book is not in the same sequence as that used in orthodox standard technology.

Because of the need to build up horsepower before attempting to run what are known as "lower level processes" solo, the early chapters introduce some of the easier "upper level processes" first as well as providing basic concepts and techniques which are essential to self clearing. Many of these processes are above any level currently used in orthodox Scientology and derive from the original research line of 1952-4 which was never followed up on completely.

You should not jump around through the book reading random paragraphs in quick succession because it may stir up too many different things at once.

This book is highly compact, presenting the minimum necessary rather than lengthy explanations. Each chapter could be a major study in itself. In other words, there is little repetition and no buffering of the ideas to give one time to get used to them slowly.

You should not be afraid of looking ahead, but do not look at multiple new chapters at one sitting. At least take a break in between.

This warning even applies to professional processors when they first look over the book. Since about a third of the areas handled by the book are also handled in orthodox Scientology processing ("standard tech"), they will want to know what has been added and might start skipping around out of enthusiasm or curiosity.

Someone with professional training could certainly read any chapter or try any process out of sequence. But even they should not stir up too many different things all at once, that is a good way to make yourself sick.

The advice in all cases is to take your time and don't try to do too much at one sitting.

If you do get in trouble, follow the advice given in the next section.

Of course these warnings don't apply once you have studied a chapter thoroughly.