The R3R Preliminary Step is done to assure that the correct incident chain is run on the pc for that pc.

Many chains, locks, secondaries and engrams, are available on any pc. But some of them are beyond the pc’s reality and ability and some of them are too featherweight to get any case gain.

The basic problem in starting a case on R3R is to run the pc on a chain that will (a) improve the case, (b) hold the pc’s interest, (c) be within the pc’s current ability to handle.

The establishing of the correct chain was a missing element in all earlier engram running. Almost any pc from Level 7 upwards could have run engrams if the exact chain necessary to resolve the case could have been established. This is accomplished now by an accurate assessment using a sensitive E-Meter and the following form and procedure.

It does not matter if the pc begins on a chain of locks, secondaries or engrams so long as running it does (a), (b) and (c) above. You do not have to specify in R3R whether you are running engrams, secondaries or locks. The word „Incident“ covers all.

Also, it does not matter if the pc stays within this lifetime or goes whole track so long as the assessed chain is followed and a basic eventually discovered for it. The chain leads where the chain leads.

But once having found the proper chain the auditor must follow that chain, not skip about. To do this, the auditor, when asking for an earlier incident in later R3R steps always specifies the proper chain found in this assessment by the Level + Item result of this Preliminary Step Assessment. For example, if the chain found here in the Preliminary Step is „Decisions to die“ (Level found = Decided + Item Found = To die), one obtains earlier incidents by always saying, „Is the next earlier decision to die more than…… years ago? Less than…… years ago?“

Thus the result obtained in the Preliminary Step is used on and on until an actual basic is reached. This may be fifty or more engrams run and perhaps even some R3N in the middle of the chain if the chain leads into a GPM by normal rote use of R3R.

When a basic is reached and discharged and the chain being run now gives little or no TA action (or even free needle), a new Preliminary Step is done. But until that happens, this Preliminary Step is not repeated with the other steps. Once it has happened (a basic found and run), however, a new Preliminary Step is done exactly as given here for the first chain assessment.

You find the chain.

You run engram after engram on that chain (or lock after lock or secondary after secondary).

You find a basic.

You run the basic thoroughly.

With TA action now gone on the chain found you do a new Preliminary Step.

RULE: TA ACTION EXISTS ON THE CORRECT CHAIN.

RULE: A CHAIN ONCE ASSESSED MUST BE FULLY RUN.

RULE: TA ACTION CEASES ON A DISCHARGED CHAIN.

RULE: A NEW ASSESSMENT IS DONE ONLY WHEN A CHAIN IS DISCHARGED.

RULE: ANY PROPERLY ASSESSED CHAIN WILL PRODUCE TA ACTION.

RULE: IF A CHAIN ASSESSED DOES NOT PRODUCE IMMEDIATE TA ACTION WITH SKILLED R3R THE ASSESSMENT (OR THE RESULTING QUESTION FORMED) IS INCORRECT.

The exact procedure of assessment is:

1. Assess pc by elimination as below for a R3R Form Level.

2. List the Form Level found to a completed List.

3. Nul the completed list to a single subject.

4. Use the Form Level plus subject to designate the character of the incident to be found every time an incident is looked for.

All rules of listing as developed in R2-12 apply to this Preliminary Step. They are not repeated here.

One is not looking for RRs or RSes in the Preliminary Step Assessment. Any type of read is valid.

When doing this step of R3R use the ARC Break Assessment for Listing Form, not the R3R ARC Break Assessment Form. The main sources of ARC Breaks in the Preliminary Step are:

1. Wrong level assessed.

2. The listed list incomplete.

3. The wrong Item taken from the list.

4. A former chain or engram abandoned to do a new assessment.

5. Earlier levels restimulated (old Pre-Hav auditing).

6. Earlier listing restimulated.

Such forms will be published from time to time as they tend to change and improve.

The very earliest assessment (1948) used was “What the pc could see” when he closed his or her eyes. This was then run.

This was followed by an arbitrary method of assigning necessary incidents to be run such as birth and prenatals.

The next earliest assessment (1949) was to ask each time for “the incident necessary to resolve the case”. An automaticity known as the “File Clerk” was depended upon, impinged into action by finger snapping.

The next period (1951) concerned whole track exploration running whatever you could get to read on a meter.

The next period (1952) concerned overt engrams located by what the pc seemed to be doing physically.

This ended the Dianetic period where engrams were run to clear but mainly to cure psychosomatic illnesses.

Variations of these assessments were revived from time to time in Dianetic uses culminating in the 5th London ACC where overt engrams were run with confront and great stress was laid on getting the postulates out of them. The meter and shrewd guesses played their part in assessments.

Up to this time there was a great dependence on “insight” and judgment. We were barred to some degree by my own ability to see other people’s pictures which made engram running very easy for me to do, along with my general knowledge of the whole track and the mind. This led me to be very hard to convince that engram assessment was a subject at all or that most auditors couldn’t do it.

With the advent of Scientology with its complete shift from Dianetic goals, healing went out as a reason for running engrams and concern about the body vanished as an auditing target. This led to stresses on exteriorization of the spirit, moving it away from the body. As the reactive bank was thought to be part of the body, its engrams received no further attention.

Eventually I discovered that the thetan had engrams and that these were being automatically (involuntarily) created by him.

Engram running has vanished as a healing process. Engram handling by chains has emerged as an entirely reoriented subject, not even vaguely connected with the body and with the target not of a human clear but of Operating Thetan.

The assessment for engram chains (or any kind of chain) emerges finally in Routine 3R. This assessment technology from beginning to end is Scientology. None of it was ever heard of in Dianetics. Therefore we have crossed a bridge. I have finally understood that precise assessment is vital for an auditor and that an auditor can learn the exact chain to be run on the pc without any intuition or second sight and that even my own auditing is bettered thereby, and that the thetan cannot be freed and re-empowered without an assessment and rote technology for engram running. This is R3R.

The earliest R3R assessment for chains was done by pc interest and the button Protested. The pc was merely asked, “In this Lifetime what have you protested?” and with no listing, whatever the pc said and seemed interested in was taken.

This however did not often produce adequate TA action when the chain was then run.

The next improvement was using the 18 Prepcheck buttons. This drew a blank on some pcs, no level reacting.

Accordingly, I then developed a new Pre-Hav Scale, based mainly on flows. It is Protest that is basically responsible for making a mental image picture. However, very few cases are up to this level. In order to bring more levels of case under engram running and to get more TA action for any case, I developed this Preliminary Step Scale.

The present scale takes some account of (1) The old Pre-Hav Scale, (2) The Know-to-Mystery Scale, (3) The Chart of Attitudes, (4) The 18 Buttons and (5) The Flows Scale, as well as some old well-known buttons.

Several possible levels (such as Create) have been left out because they would go at once into the GPM or Implant Goals. It may not be important that they do. Indeed, with experience we may even come to guide the pc at them. But for the moment they are left out.

There would be nothing wrong in borrowing further from these sources to draw up a longer Preliminary Step Scale, but I think this should cover most pcs.

The three most important visible factors in R3R are:

(a) Pc’s interest.

(b) Tone Arm Action.

(c) The ability of the pc to run the incidents.

If the auditor can see these he knows his Preliminary Assessment was right.

Interest does not mean happiness and joy. Interest is only absorbed attention and a desire to talk about it. Tears, terror or agony may be present without the Interest factor being absent. A chain of engrams is expected to produce pain and anaten. A chain of secondaries is expected to produce misemotion. These have nothing in them to head an auditor off a chain.

Equally, significance and story content have no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of a chain selected. They are entirely incidental to judging the correctness of a chain.

All the auditor is interested in is whether (a) the pc is interested; (b) the TA action is good and (c) can the pc run the incidents on the chain with correct and exact R3 R.

That careless auditing and bad R3R can influence (c), leaves us with only two exact criteria for a correct assessment:

(a) Pc’s Interest and

(b) TA Action while running incidents.

Only these two things tell us the assessment was right. The assessment can be right and unskilled R3R can wreck both in the later steps, a fact which has to be taken into account in reviewing cases in progress.

This is the Assessment for R3R Preliminary Step.

In this form will be recognized the old Pre-Hav Scales and others, but improved for the purpose of engram chain assessment.

This assessment must be done accurately. It is hard to do if the pc doesn’t understand a level during assessment, is startled by one or disagrees. These will make the assessment inaccurate. If the assessment is inaccurately done, the pc will ARC Break or the resulting engram chain will not give TA action when being run.

The final level assessed will probably give TA action at once when found if right.

The key sentence in assessing is “In this lifetime have you mainly…… (level).” This is repeated for each level called. Levels are called once, as in ordinary elimination. Those that stayed in are reassessed the same way. The one form can be used for many additional assessments on the same pc as chains are run out.

The use of this form brings R3R down to Case Level 7 in workability. A chain of engrams being run must give TA action. If none is present in running engrams and the TA stays high or low the assessment was wrong.

The level found here is used to make and complete a list with the question, “In this lifetime what have you…. (level found)?” “In this lifetime” is used not because we only want chains in this lifetime but to keep pc from going all over the track during the preliminary assessment, this making it too long. The chain you want comes into this lifetime. All rules of listing apply as in R2-12A in doing this list.

In event of an ARC Break while doing the Preliminary Step, use the ARC Break Assessment for Listing.

If needle dirties up in assessing this form, give form to pc and ask “What happened?” and if that fails, get in BMRs “On this Assessment”.

In nulling this scale the pc may suddenly break down emotionally or get an overpowering reaction. (Not just a twinge or an interest in a level, since the pc will not know the real level until it is found.) If so, STOP, don’t go on. Go back to above the point where pc was all right and then carefully null back down to where you stopped. Go over this area getting in suppress and invalidate if needful and you’ll have the pc’s level found. You may lead into ARC Breaks if you persist in going on as you have by-passed charge. But the pc’s reaction must be large for you to use this mechanism. Beware of a “sell” by the pc. A pc doesn’t know the level until it is actually found. Some pcs will decide on a level and it will then read. In such a case get in Protested and Decided with “On this scale have you……” by fast check. Don’t let your pc mess up an assessment by a “sell” or decision. But don’t keep on down a long assessment of this scale with the pc shattered by pain or emotion as the pc will suppress the right level.

When you have found the pc’s level on the above scale by elimination, then list the following question, using that level found: “In this lifetime what have you…… (level found)?”

List the list to a clean needle so that it nuls very easily, leaving a very few in on the first nulling, only two or three in on the second nulling of what has been left in. Put mid ruds in on these if necessary. Nul out to the final Item.

Combine the Level found and the Item found. This is a very simple step. The wording may have to be altered in tense but not in sense. “Decided” may become “Decision”. “Failed to think” may become “Failure to think”. In the Item found some shift of the pc’s wording may be needful. But be very careful that you get a combination of Level and Item that makes sense to the pc and reads on the meter without protest reading too. These reads are often not very large and at best assume steep falls with TA action. So be careful to add up the Level and the Item found to a sensible statement that does not alter the sense. For instance you can err greatly if the Level was “Fear” and the Item was “Entrapment” if you vary it to “Fear of Traps”. That won’t give you the same chain at all. The correct one is “Fear of Entrapment” of course.

You can have a correct Level, a correct Item and then fail to combine the two sensibly. If so you will get (a) A confused pc and (b) A wrong chain. Either way you’ll get little TA action and no R3R done.

The Level “Failed to Convince” and the Item “Father” had better be left just that way. It gives a short chain, this lifetime, soon done. By changing the Item “Father” to “Fathers” you would go whole track but the significance is wildly altered and might not run at all. The less alteration the better. And never alter the sense of it.

Use the question: “Is the first available (Level) (Item) incident earlier than five years ago? Later than five years ago?” And using times to suit, go on with Step One of R3R.

(Note: The above scale is in random order of arrangement at this time and positions of levels on the scale have no significance.)