Lecture: Control of Attention

Author: Hubbard, L. R.
Document date: 1961, 18 August
Document title: Control of Attention
Document type: lecture transcript
Event: Saint Hill Special Briefing Course
Location: East Grinstead, Sussex
Document ID: SHSBC-46
Description: Hubbard is lecturing on aspects of auditing; discusses what happens with the preclear's attention in the presence of an ARC break or upset; contrasts his withhold-pulling technique with "Catholic and Freudian mental therapy" in terms of processing guilt complexes. This excerpt also illustrates the level of attention control auditors exert over their preclears in auditing.

Now, “willing to talk to the auditor” is the other one. Now of course, a pc with a heavy ARC break¹ is not willing to talk to the auditor, but also a pc who does not want the auditor to know something is unwilling to talk to the auditor. But when a pc has a withhold², something new is occurring. The pc is sitting in the middle of the session, with a known where he is and an unknown where the auditor is and so the auditing session is a ridge³. He’s got a not . . he’s got a “know,” the auditor’s got a “not-know” on the same subject.

Now, in view of the fact that the pc’s attention is fixated⁴ on this withhold, even at a lower level than . . than analytical inspection, when we don’t get it we’re guilty of auditing a pc with an attention fix and it comes back to attention fixation. So if we don’t get off the withholds, we’ve got a pc with his attention fixed on something. Same thing, isn’t it? Make more sense?

They had marvelous luck and everybody on the course over in Washington really learned to pull withholds and they made terrific case gains and everything was going along fine on . . on . . as far as this is concerned. They really learned to do Security Checking and so on; to that degree I’m very happy with
them.

But of course, they’d make case gains. You can always make a case gain with a withhold. Fellow’s attention is totally fixed on fireplaces where he burned the baby. you know, “Fireplace, fireplace, fireplace. Now I’ve got to have my attention fixed on this.” But it’s a little bit of a complicated attention fix. It’s an out-fix with an in-pull. Which of course is guaranteed to anchor it. See. He’s got his attention fixed on it, but it mustn’t get out and it must be a not-know everywhere else than where he is, you see.

And you get what is known as guilt and it forms such a tremendous part of Catholic and Freudian mental therapy.

Guilt, guilt complexes . . oh, these are terribly important. Well, what it is, is an attention fix. With the additional complication that it’s got to stay fixed to pull it in, so it mustn’t get out. See, it’s just a little more complicated version of attention fix. So you can’t audit anybody with a big withhold. That’s simple.

So it breaks down to the fact that you try auditing somebody with a present time problem⁵ of short duration or a present time problem of long duration or a withhold and he’s going to get ARC breaks and you’re going to have trouble in the session and that is all there is to it. And the session is not going to run right and it’s going to go over the hills and far away and that’s it.

And I don’t care whether the pc says it is all right, I don’t care if the pc says he likes it, I don’t care whether the pc says this is perfectly all right; he knows you’re trying hard. The basic mechanic of the whole thing still holds and down underneath all of this “you’re trying” and “it’s all right,” and so forth, are the same forces of ARC break building up. Those same forces are still building up. It doesn’t matter what the pc says.

This happens to be a mental mechanic which takes priority over all postulating and everything else on the part of the pc. So it doesn’t matter what the pc thinks about your ARC breaks or your auditing. If this condition is there, the pc could think you were a wonderful auditor and make no progress. How fascinating.

Now, if you’re very alert and you’re very good at observation and you’re very slippy, one way or the other, you notice the pc’s wandering eye. I do. This accounts to a marked degree for my auditing gains and their consistency, is I see the pc sitting there and I see the pc looking into limbo as I ask this question or other and I want to know what the pc’s looking at beneath the level of the eye socket. Pc isn’t there. I know it, so I find out where the pc is. It sometimes doesn’t take more than a few comments and a few directions and something or other. And his attention just slides very smoothly off of where it’s anchored and it comes over just exactly where I want it to and from that moment on, why, we’re in, man. We’re running! You see?

Hubbard, L. R. (1961, 18 August). Control of Attention. Saint Hill Special Briefing Course,   (SHSBC-46). Lecture conducted from East Grinstead, Sussex.

Notes