The following report from Saint Hill Special Course Instructor, Herbie Parkhouse, former Association Secretary, London, is illuminative in the extreme.

A recent discovery I have made may well do away with the need to directly run problems, particularly on people who find them hard to confront.

The mechanism is this:

“Dear Ron,

All problems are preceded by a Prior Confusion.

“Here is a long note on my recent experiences on clearing, beginning with Problems Intensive Assessment.

The handling consists of locating the problem, then locating the Prior Confusion and then Sec Checking that Prior Confusion.

“I took over my pc after quite a bit of auditing from Reg Sharpe, Instructor, who had found the Goal and Terminal, and a fellow student.

The preclear tends to edge forward in time to the problem continuously and to ‘bounce’ out of the Prior Confusion once located. The remedy is to locate the O/Ws in the Prior Confusion and keep the preclear out of the moment of the Problem.

“On commencing the Sections A-N of the Assessment Sheet I found the pc willing to give me the data asked for with an ever mounting interest, but with an inclination to fight control. This inclination grew stronger on the O Section especially on asking for self-determined changes rather than victim changes. However we completed Section O and went on to P where the problem dropped out OK and I ran the single command. This went fine but very soon the needle and Tone Arm tightened, and pc became ARC breaky. Upon instruction from yourself I changed the process to a 4 bracket command. This eased things considerably and further progress was made with Track opening up, but not much Tone Arm Action.

All somatics, circuits, problems and difficulties including ARC breaks are all preceded by a Prior Confusion. Therefore it is possible (but not always feasible at the moment) to eradicate somatics by Sec Checking the Area of Confusion which occurred just before the pc noticed the somatic for the first time.

“Then you discovered the data re Terminals and on Monday you told me to go for clear on his Goal Terminal with a 10 way, bracket incorporating Groups. This shook me but in we went. First session Rudiments took 20 minutes which was longer than ever before. The process ran OK, but not much Tone Arm change. Pc in session very well, somatics, grief and heavy yawning and lots and lots of cognitions. Good Session. You remarked, ‘Keep Rudiments in’ and I innocently wondered why you bothered to mention it! Huh!

This is part of a Class II Auditor’s skills.

“Next session I commenced Session feeling terrific, and certain I could clear him as per your instructions, until I checked Rudiments, which incidentally on the cross check by another auditor were all OK. I took 48 minutes to clear the Rudiments on the meter, over hill and down dale, through ARC breaks, complaints and attempts to make me feel guilty. At the end of all this I didn’t have a pc very much in session, so I ran 6 commands of the main process and ended Session, for I figured that by ending Session I could get two more cracks at what the heck was going on. In the End Rudiments I took 33 minutes, most of which was on withholds – thanks for the new W/H Question – and did I get a surprise. It turned out that if my pc was to go clear he would have to ‘level’ with certain people and change his way of life, which he wasn’t willing to do, so he worked it out that if he worried me we would spend so much time on the Rudiments that we would never get to the main process and thus he would not go clear and have to do things he was unwilling to do.

A problem could be regarded as a mechanism by which to locate hidden Areas of Confusion in a pc’s life.

“The Beginning Rudiments for the next session took the whole of 5 mins. In the process the Tone Arm moved, track opened up and out popped Robots, 2 ft high, green in colour with pineapple hand grenade type heads, and some somatics. End Rudiments also took 5 minutes.

All Hidden Standards are the result of a Prior Confusion.

“Next day Rudiments were out again. Withhold on the subject of clearing and its seeming obligations once again reared its head, but not to the same degree as before.

The mechanism is extremely valuable. All rudiments could be run by finding the rudiment out, getting the difficulty expressed, locating the Prior Confusion and then finding the pc’s O/Ws in that Area of Confusion.

Track is opening up at quite a high rate. Tone Arm is moving up to 1½ Tone Arm divisions. Cognitions all over the place. Tomorrow I think we’ll flatten it.

A Problems Intensive based on this mechanism is under design and I will release it for Class II use when I am satisfied the form is complete.

“You have said many times, ‘Watch the rudiments’ – I have, but I have never respected them as much as I do now.

“The problem my pc was putting in the way of clearing was very small to me, but big to him. I never would have guessed it could have held us up in a million years.

“Thanks for Rudiments.”