I have just re-discovered a very important item about E-Meter electrodes and the behaviour of the instrument in Security Checks and assessments.

Any “E-Meter” will register proper tone arm position, can squeeze and body motion. Whether it was built by the Communist Party or the local cat-food factory. Any meter will register body reactions.

Only a specially built meter will also register mental responses. Thus any meter can act like an E-Meter so far as body reactions go. The TA and needle rise and fall, sensitivity increases and decreases. It all looks just like an E-Meter until you measure amount of mental response to a security or assessment question. The amount of mental response depends on the surface area contact and the circuit.

The history of it is this: In early 1951 Mathison delivered the first pair of mains current meters he had made for me. They responded to body action but I could get no valuable mental response on the needle. Jim Elliot and I worked with them and came up with the idea that a bigger electrode was necessary. Jim took two soup tin cans, put battery (crocodile jaw) clips on the leads, and we found that only then could we make these meters work to the mind. The soup can made enough skin contact with the pc to let his thoughts register as well as his physical tone. The old meters still would not let some pcs on at the bottom and lots of pcs left them at the top, but they were valuable.

At length Mathison refused to build anything that would register thinking, cut back to one-hand electrodes and generally developed his meter beyond any possible use to us and so we parted.

Many years later, after a lot of work, I had Don Breeding design a transistor meter. This, often refined and held on the rails by me, and often derailed by mind-is- matter “improvements” by others, became the modern meter. In England I did a great deal more developmental work and the British Mark IV finally resulted.

There are only five pieces of research I have not myself done in Scientology. One is the effect of vitamins on mental response, done by a New York nurse for us. One is the effect of restimulation on IQ, which I proposed and Don Rogers carried out. One is the basic meter made by Mathison after a lecture by myself. One is the actual circuit of the modern transistor meter done by Don Breeding. And one is the following, which is enormously important because there’s a mistake in it.

In England, around 1957, the “mains meter” made by HASI London used aluminium electrodes, small pipes about an inch in diameter. I challenged their use. We used only soup cans on the 1957 American meter. I turned a test project over to the electronics department in D.C. and eventually they reported to me:

“There is no difference of meter response of any kind in using the thin aluminium tubes and American soup cans.”

I relaxed about it then and for some years permitted aluminium tubes to be used, despite my original work in the early Mathison mains meter. After all, the experts had said they were okay.

And just two nights ago I found with horror that the aluminium electrodes are at fault!

You yourself can make the test. The same test I made. Take two old aluminium electrodes. Put a Kleenex wadded on the end of one for insulation and have a pc hold both in one hand. Now take a known item that gets constant mental response on a meter, such as the pc’s goal or terminal or other 3-D item or some hot button. Note that physical response of the meter, the rise and fall of the tone arm, the can squeeze all look good. Now say the pc’s goal or button and watch the needle. You may not even be able to detect a needle action!

Now have the pc hold the electrodes one in each hand as is usual. Say the pc’s goal or button. You will be able to see some instant response.

Now remove the aluminium electrodes and put soup cans on the E-Meter leads.

Say the same item to the pc as before.

You will find three times as much needle response as with the aluminium electrodes.

If the item gave you one dial division reaction with aluminium electrodes you will get nearly 3 dial divisions of response with soup cans.

So that’s that. The moral of the tale is: Use Soup Cans.

Throw away your aluminium electrodes no matter how pretty they are or how nicely they fit.

Put the battery clip type on your E-Meter leads nearest the pc. These are a set of spring jaws with a screw in one end to fasten the wire. The jaws have teeth. The can end is about a third of an inch of teeth. These are simply bitten onto the edge of the soup can. The soup cans can then be snapped off or on, stowed or replaced at will.

The double wire of the lead should be pulled apart about two and a half feet up from the clips so that when the pc stretches, he can hold the cans as much as five feet apart without their becoming unclipped.

These clips can be bought at any dime store in the electrical department. Use the same plug-in jack that goes with the meter and came with the meter. If you buy new wire get a long double plastic-covered wire of copper, rather heavy so it won’t part invisibly in the meter leads.

And as for the most important part, the soup cans, go down to the store and take a foot rule with you. Find some canned juice or soup with a paper, not a painted, label. The can should be exactly 3 inches in diameter and four and a half inches long. That’s a very standard can. Don’t get them thinner or thicker than this or shorter or larger. Buy four, so you’ll have two spares.

Now, at home, use great care and a patent opener and open with a smooth edge. Consume the juice or soup or give it to the poor. In removing the top make sure you leave no rough edge.

Clip the crocodile jaws over the open edge of the can and you’ve done it.

Those withholds you’ve been missing will now read. 3-D items are a breeze.

Rudiments can be found when out without cranking sensitivity to the moon.

Soup cans give enough skin contact and steadiness of grip to give you mental reaction.

Can squeeze tests are unchanged. But are more reliable.

No meter registry is shifted in any way, regardless of the increased size.

Pcs eat the tin off steel cans so be neat and get new cans often. Old cans get to looking pretty grim and feeling rough. Try new kinds of soup.

Well, it sounds like a fuss or to-do over soup cans.

But it’s the difference between withholds found and withholds missed; rudiments in to rudiments out and 3-D items discovered where none seemed to exist before.

I have my own additional moral to the story. If I didn’t do the actual research on something, it’s liable to be a miss.

So bottoms up with the vegetable juice and onward and upward better meter reads.