CHAPTER 22
MORE ON UPSETS

In this chapter we are going to take the subject of upsets a bit further.

But first, this seems like a good time to mention the E-meter since this is a useful tool in this area.

Note that having an E-meter is not a requirement for doing the processes in this chapter. But you should at least know what one is and how they work, because they are commonly used by professionals. Furthermore, they are often mentioned in Scientology technical materials that deal with handling ARC Breaks (upsets).

The following is only a brief introduction. Real skill at using an E-meter generally requires taking a course that includes practical drilling.

22.1 The E-Meter

The E-meter as used by the Church of Scientology or the equivalent devices available in the freezone are simple measurement instruments which display the electrical resistance of the human body.

As mental charge is stirred up or released, the electrical resistance of the body will reflect these changes.

The changes, however, are subtle and generally too fine to see on a simple ohm-meter (a device for measuring electrical resistance). A dial which covered the entire possible range at which a body might be found would make the interesting reactions too small to be seen in most cases.

So instead, a range adjustment is used to focus in on the approximate resistance at which a particular body is sitting at the moment and the needle dial acts as a window into that precise band of resistance. This turns small fluctuations in resistance into large needle reactions which are easier to see.

Due to a mistake in early theory, the range adjustment was mistakenly thought to reflect the person's emotional tone level and was therefore called the "tone arm". Because of this, it was labeled with what are now arbitrary numbers from zero to seven which supposedly represented emotional tones.

The normal, or unabberated, range on this tone arm is generally between two (which is actually 5,000 ohms) and three (which is actually 12,500 ohms).

Higher resistances (especially readings above 4 or 5 on this tone arm) generally indicate that mental "mass" is present. In processing, if the tone arm was in the normal range and suddenly begins to soar upwards into this high area, it generally indicates that a process has been overrun (continued past the point of handling what it was aimed at) and is now stirring up things without handling them. The person will often feel tired and heavy. The usual handling is to spot the release point that has been bypassed.

Excessively low resistance generally indicates that the person is overwhelmed. Under too much impact, a person will try to make things unreal (disconnecting from reality) to try and get out from under. This is reflected in extreme drops in resistance in the body. One remedy is to run extremely light things (such as the first process in chapter one) until the person comes back to himself.

The reactions of the needle can be quite useful and interesting. These show the moment to moment changes and mental flinches or reactions to things.

This is specifically useful for probing things that are out of sight but accessible.

The meter will not react on things that are deeply buried. And the occasional reactions as a person thinks about things or considers a question are not of interest because the person can already think in those areas. But in-between lies that portion of the mind which is slightly hidden but is not out of reach. This is the area that we are interested in processing because these are the things that we can reach to clean them up. And as this area is handled, more of the hidden areas beneath it are revealed and become accessible.

The meter reactions in this band are instantaneous, because the person is not thinking about these things but only reacting. Note that for this reason, the needle must not be shielded by the usual protective circuitry which is often used to protect them against current surges because it will obscure the instantaneousness of the reactions.

The meter is at its best when it is used to pin down some mental charge that has been stirred up.

For example, if somebody is upset, the meter can be checked as to whether the break occurred in affinity, reality, communication, or understanding. It will react on the one which triggered the ARC Break because that is where the charge lies.

In the 1950s, meters were primarily used for assessing things such as this to determine sources of charge. They work well in this regard. They do not work well for seeking general answers to cosmic questions because they will not react on the deeper areas which are still inaccessible to the person. They also do not work well as lie detectors because they react to the presence of mental charge rather than providing absolute answers.

Assessments can be done solo without the use of a meter simply by considering the various possible answers until you settle on one with some certainty. But in this case, the meter is a great time saver and much easier than swimming around in a charged area trying to figure something out.

It is beyond the scope of this book to teach you the details of using a meter. There is already a great deal of literature on the subject and it is much easier to learn on a course that includes practical drills.

But if you do have one and know how to use it, then do so by all means, especially on those things that require assessments.

Do not, however, let the lack of a meter stop you from continuing. It is simply a helpful tool rather than a necessity.

22.2 More on the Anatomy of Upsets

In the previous chapter, we analyzed upsets as stemming from breaks in affinity, reality, or communications. We can also add understanding to the list because it is a product of ARC and will sometimes come up as the specific source of the break.

So in dealing with an ARC Break, one is first of all interested in whether the break occurred in A, R, C, or U. Spotting this helps one focus on the exact cause of the break.

But it is often necessary to focus more precisely and spot exactly what occurred in regards to the affinity, or communication, or whatever.

For this is useful to know a practical scale which maps out the behavior of these flows of ARC.

When one first contacts something, one might be in a divine state of all knowingness and perceive and pervade it completely. But that is not usually the case. Therefore, one begins from a state of not-know, and that is the top level on our scale.

Not-knowing, one may choose to become curious or interested. This is the beginning of an ARC flow. From there, one may move on to good communication, affinity, etc. and then there is no difficulty or upset.

But often, one does not connect fully and instead finds some resistance. If one chooses to remain interested despite this, then one must amplify the flow to overcome the resistance, and with that, one begins to desire the person or thing. Now one can get into trouble because there is intensity and resistance and a possible game condition.

If the person can neither push through and accomplish nor abandon the desire, he will sink into the band of effort and begin to enforce ARC. From this point on, he begins to react mechanically and can have great difficulties.

Failing to enforce, he will begin to inhibit in an attempt to get away from something which is now too highly charged. But this is often unsuccessful because he is now connecting to the item compulsively. So he tries to make nothing of the thing and have none of it. And failing in that, he begins to reject it with a vengeance.

This forms a scale as follows:

Not-Know

Curious (Interest)

Desire

Enforce

Inhibit

No

Refused (Rejection)

An ARC break can trigger on any of these being done to either A, R, C, or U, either by you to another or another to you. It occurs on the levels from Desire on downwards because these are enforcement or inhibitions of ARC flows to a greater or lesser degree (even desire has some push in it). They occasionally occur on the upper buttons (not-know and curious) simply because these can remind one of earlier ARC breaks.

There are other inter-related triangles (such as be, do, have) and there are other kinds of flows (energy or whatever) which can break or give one troubles, but ARC is by far the most significant and the most useful to handle.

We will examine how to use this in the next section.

22.3 Handling an Upset

(This section was originally published in the Super Scio book and fits in here precisely).

An upset is best described as an ARC Break (ARCX). On a self processing basis, you would first just look the incident over very carefully, confronting what happened and spotting things about it. The emphasis is on saying what is (ITSA) and not worrying about the confused and unresolved parts of it (which will be handled next). This is to soften the incident up a bit. Needless to say, you do this away from the source of the ARC break if at all possible.

If you're extremely upset, furious or hysterical or whatever, then also do alternate spotting of the room and the incident until things cool down a bit.

When you're ready, consider the points Affinity, Reality, Communication, and Understanding and determine which was the most significant in the upset. You can do this step again if there is more than one. This is an assessment, as discussed earlier. Done without a meter, you simply take your best shot and if the following step doesn't bring some relief, you try again.

Then check if the item found above was enforced or inhibited. If neither one of these indicates strongly, then use a broader assessment consisting of a) Not-Known, b) Curious, c) Desired, d) Enforced, e) Inhibited, f) No .., g) Refused. Note that standard tech does not include the Not-Know button in their ARCX assessments, but it follows from general theory and shows up more as you get higher on the scale.

When you spot that, lets say, an enforced reality or an inhibited communication was the primary source of the upset, there should be a feeling of relief. If not, then you've got it wrong and should redo the above.

The relief on spotting this can be partial or total. If its complete, then you're done. If not, then carry on as follows:

First of all, spot the primary direction of flow. I.E., did you inhibit someone else's communication or did someone else inhibit yours. It can even be another inhibiting others communication or someone (you or somebody else) inhibiting their own communication (or affinity or reality or whatever the button was).

Then spot exactly what communication (for example) was inhibited and state it clearly.

Spot what you did in the incident.

Spot what you decided in the incident.

Spot what you postulated in the incident.

Note that professionals don't use this extra set of questions specifically, but they do get the PC to ITSA about the incident. In self processing, you generally need more precise questions, and the above are aimed at getting more ITSA.

If something still seems unsolveable or hopeless about the incident, then look for an earlier similar upset and repeat the above.

And watch out for overrun. If it gets better and then suddenly seems more solid, you've passed the release point and should rehabilitate it instead of continuing.

22.4 Clearing Up Major Upsets

Now we want to apply the above ARC Break handling to any major upsets that are bothering you.

First check for people that you are currently upset with. For each one, locate the first moment of upset and apply the above to it, checking if it was a break in affinity, reality, communication or understanding, and so forth.

Then check for situations that you are currently upset about and handle those.

Next, consider if there is somebody who you are continually getting upset with that wasn't already handled above. Spot the earliest upset with them that you can find and run the ARC Break handling on that.

You can do the same for groups or society, etc. If something wouldn't resolve, then look earlier, because later upsets will hang up on earlier similar upsets.

Next consider major self determined changes that have happened in your life. Things like deciding that you had to move to a different neighborhood, for example. We are not talking here about changing to take advantage of some wonderful opportunity but rather times when you just had to do something because things were bad. Run the ARC break handling on each of these, pinning down and handling the specific charge that was pushing you at that time.

Now turn the tables and consider who has gotten upset with you and run the above ARC break handling to see how you triggered the upset. Run these (using any of the above) until you feel that you can be in control over whether or not other people get upset with you.

Finally, consider upsets that you have seen between other people and run them as above, finding earlier similar times that you saw the same kind of upset occurring if necessary.

22.5 The Pattern of Aberration

 In the beginning, the being goes out of communication on a selective basis. This is a matter of free choice, but was perhaps encouraged to the being's detriment, because when he goes too far out of communication, he will be easier to control.

Once he is out of communication (even if only selectively), he sometimes runs into things that he doesn't like and begins protesting instead of confronting them.

Then he creates things compulsively out of protest (to communicate a protest) and that in turn leads to problems.

Next he begins committing harmful acts in an effort to solve these problems.

Because he has committed harmful acts, he now has withholds and tends to go out of ARC. This opens the door to ARC breaks as we have been discussing here.

It is only late in the game that he can actually be hurt. He first has to accumulate enough aberration on these lines that he can become the effect of his own creations. Until that point is reached, it is really a game of semi-gods teasing and annoying each other without much harm. The most that they can do is to mess up each others creations, like little kids playing in a sandbox.

We are the shattered remnants of these early godlike beings, stuck within our own and each others creations.

- From a human perspective, it might seem like you have good reason for various upsets because our recent histories has included much terrible pain and destruction. The apparent condition is that the ARC breaks are there as the result of the various terrible things that have been done.

But the ARC breaks actually run much earlier, back to a time when we could not suffer real harm but could be "hurt" by the rejection of affinity or the refusal to communicate. That came first and that is why we have been blowing each other to bits on a chronic basis.

The ARC breaks come first. Then come the wars.

When you take a second pass through this book, try to get really early on these ARC breaks and see if you can find or imagine the kind of upsets that godlike beings would have with each other.

22.7 The Underlying Mechanics

One might well ask why the above pattern develops. After all, tastes can differ without upset and there are many people you are not talking to without any liability whatsoever. In other words, simply not having a lot of ARC is not the same as having an ARC break, it does not have the "charge" and upset associated with it.

The ARC Break occurs because there is already "charge" present. ARC is a powerful enough factor to dissipate the charge that accumulates during everyday life (listening and caring and understanding bring relief). When an ARC line is cut either by enforcing or inhibiting it, any charge that was being relieved suddenly back up and this is the real reason for the reactions often being out of proportion.

But note that ARC itself does not inherently create charge. The charge is coming from the person's own inhibitions and compulsions. Things that he must or must not be, do, or have.

We have already addressed the area of must have and can't have to some degree. We have also looked a bit at being willing to be and do things. This is the underlying source of charge and we will be working these areas further as we continue along.

When you are willing to be, do, or have anything and have no compulsion or avoidance, you will be free of mental charge and upset. And then you will find that your own free choice has fantastic power because you are no longer being drawn into or repelled by the factors of life around you. Just because you can be a slave doesn't mean that you should be one. It actually means the opposite, namely that you have a choice in the matter and will be more adept at avoiding such a role if desired because you can confront it and are not attracting it.

22.8 An ARC Process

Do this after you have handled all current upsets.

Now to round this off, go to a crowded area and flow some ARC at random people.

Then look around and spot flows of ARC between people.

Then mockup flows of ARC between people.

Then flow some more ARC at people. Get the idea that they are flowing ARC back at you even if they aren't showing it.

If anything goes wrong, flow more ARC.

You should end off feeling really good about people.