For years now, I’ve been hearing about DM’s “interpretation” of LRH’s definition of a floating needle and the trouble it has caused both auditors and preclears.

The LRH definition as written in HCOB 21 July 1978, WHAT IS A FLOATING NEEDLE is elegant simplicity itself:

“A floating needle is a rhythmic sweep of the dial at a slow, even pace of the needle.

“That’s what an F/N is. No other definition is correct.”

That’s the entirety of the bulletin.

I’d heard that DM, via his RTC Reps, had begun enforcing an interpretation based on the word “rhythmic” that an F/N had to sweep back and forth at least 3 times, based on the definition of the word “rhythmic.” I’m guessing that the idea was to give a verifiable minimum physical universe standard for what constituted a release in the pc’s mind. Whatever the reasoning, I’d heard a fair amount about this over the years.

Then, just recently a friend sent me a revision to this is simple LRH bulletin issued on 8 October 2000, which amends the definition to:

“A floating needle is a rhythmic sweep of the dial at a slow, even pace of the needle, back and forth, back and forth, without change in the width of the swing except perhaps to widen as the pc gets off the last small bits of charge. Note that it can get so wide that you have to shift the tone arm back and forth, back and forth, to keep the needle on the dial, in which case you have a floating tone arm.

“That’s what an F/N is. No other definition is correct.”

I’d never seen it before. I read it and thought to myself, “That mother*#!@+%^&#!! He went and changed the bulletin.”

I looked down at the bottom to see who had done the revision and I saw the initials “sk.” Sue Koon. My wife at the time. She was still working in RTRC while I was working in CMU. She never mentioned this revision to me in the 3+ ensuing years before I expedited my route out from the Sea Org. Had I been strong armed into making such a revision, as she no doubt was, I would not have had the courage to tell her had our situations been reversed, so I really can’t blame her. And I can understand her shame.

Her (DM’s) justification for the revision was that LRH had added text to a revision of the book E-Meter Essentials six months later in February 1979.

I suppose that someone who has studied the numerous other references in bulletins, books and lectures where LRH mentions and discusses F/Ns would not be too bothered by this screwball revision. (LRH’s mention of fleeting F/Ns and his famous dictum about “waiting for the meter to play Dixie” immediately spring to mind.) But a brand new auditor trainee unfamiliar with these other references could have this “new” definition hammered into his or her brain with the proverbial atomic branding iron and that would become their stable datum for an F/N.

Let’s now imagine the untold amount of trouble this had made the pcs, auditors, C/Ses, Cramming Officers and the organization since.

The auditor starts the session and asks the pc is he has an ARC Break.

Pc says “Nope” and the needle sweeps back and forth at a slow even pace of the needle. He’s feeling pretty chipper and looking forward to the body of the session.

The auditor stares at the needle to make sure it sweeps back and forth once more. The pc’s attention shifts somewhat to the auditor glancing down at the meter.

The auditor looks up and says, “Thank you. On the question, ‘Do you have an ARC Break, has anything been suppressed?’”

No read.

“Do you have a present time problem?” “On the question, ‘Do you have a present time problem, has anything been suppressed?’”

One Green Form later (because if rudiments won’t fly the auditor knows to assess a Green Form) the auditor and preclear are off to the races and off the pc’s program.

One wonders how many sessions have gone completely off the rails, how many auditors have given up or been removed from auditing and how many pcs and pre-OTs have been driven nuts and driven further into debt by this single revision to this one, simple HCOB.

In fact, if you wanted to kill off Scientology and you could only enter in  ONE arbitrary into ONE LRH writing this would probably be the one. The beating heart of Scientology is the auditing session and if you can wreck every session right at the beginning, on the rudiments, or on any process if it gets that far, you will have wrecked the Scientology movement.

And you wonder why no auditors are being made, why orgs no longer sell auditing but only reg donations for other stuff and why people are leaving the church in droves.

Of course, such a coup de grâce would not have been possible during the 1950s when meters weren’t used but the subject still expanded like mad all over the world. Not saying here to get rid of meters. Just that revised definition of an F/N.

Written by Joe Howard