More About Cause-Distance-Effect

The only thing in the past which has hampered some auditors in carrying forward a great assistance to humanity has been the training factor. For once it is firmly demonstrable to himself that he can, through his own skill in processing, change at will the state of preclears for the better, the problem of the auditor’s own case is also solved. —L. Ron Hubbard

It was the fall of 1954. The international headquarters of Scientology in Phoenix, Arizona, was ablaze with activity. In the space of a few months, L. Ron Hubbard had delivered the 8th American Advanced Clinical Course, launched a series of weekly public lectures and Group Processing sessions and incorporated a new Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation. And as if that were not enough, he was simultaneously writing the final chapters of a new book, Dianetics 55!

Yet, above all, Mr. Hubbard’s researches during the previous year had been directed toward auditors—specifically, the training of auditors. To that end, he had opened a Hubbard Professional College in Phoenix, which was now delivering its first Professional Course, designed to instill in students a full understanding and mastery of the six most basic processes of Scientology.

It was called the Phoenix Certification Course. Running six days a week, the course included demonstrations from Instructors and co-auditing between students. Thus, on 16 November 1954, when L. Ron Hubbard stepped to the podium to deliver the first lecture, the predominant mood was one of excitement and anticipation.

Soon the students were fully engrossed, for Mr. Hubbard wasted no time in relaying a startling new discovery: An inability to recall is caused by scarcity of past.

Thus, the astonishing datum: Nobody in the last hundred thousand years had been able to remember at will anything on the time track.

The solution lay in Straightwire. For Straightwire, he explained, is not just an attempt to have somebody remember:

“You should realize that Elementary Straightwire does not mean remembering actual incidents. That’s a shock to you, probably.

“Straightwire was called ‘Straightwire’ because the auditor is stringing a straight line between Cause and Effect.”

For as he elucidated, the auditor is recovering the preclear’s ability to be at Cause.

It was a crucial datum. And Mr. Hubbard continued by detailing not only the integral role Straightwire played in Six Basic Processes, but fundamental advances in auditing techniques:

• Two-way Communication—a basic part of every step of a process an auditor does, and how to maintain it in any circumstance;
• The Communication Formula—how Straightwire applies to the Distance part of the communication cycle;
• Communication with a Group—how to put up anchor points to address and thereby get into communication with a group;
• Opening Procedure of 8-C—it unjams the bank by locating the “when” and “where” of present time;
• Opening Procedure by Duplication—how it blows apart the consideration it “must not happen again”;
• Remedy of Havingness—its underlying theory and mechanics in relation to the Know to Mystery Scale;
• Spotting Spots in Space—how it makes a preclear more capable of locating things and increases his ability.

Moreover, as part of all he taught those auditors, Mr. Hubbard demanded their application of the knowledge and skills they had now acquired. To that end, they set out as ministers to visit hospitals, jails and people’s homes to bring the miracles of Scientology to the local community. It was called “Operation Phoenix” and miracles in abundance there soon were—from a woman abandoned by doctors who recovered from a severe hemorrhage, to a four-year-old boy scheduled for an operation to repair a withered arm whose limb was so restored after five hours of auditing that the operation was cancelled.

But for all the astonishing results these auditors now produced with others, the greater miracle concerned the resultant effect on themselves. For, as L. Ron Hubbard had announced when inaugurating the training school:

“Today’s auditor can be secure as to his own case. For we have found that to be well it is a demonstrable fact that one must be able to make others well. It is not enough to only be well and happy oneself. The confusions and upsets of life are such as to retard anyone’s case. The auditor, succeeding uniformly with cases, becomes better in ability and health than the best preclear on whom he practices. And this is a processing fact.”

Here, then, is what stands as a landmark on the road towards greater auditor certainty.