CHAPTER IX

TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION

     A cycle of communication and twc-way communication are actually two different things. If we examine closely the anatomy of communication we will discover that a cycle of cornmunication is not a two-way communication in its entirety.

     If you will inspect Graph "A" below, you will see a cycle of communication:

     Here we have Joe as the originator of a communication. It is his primary impulse. This impulse is addressed to Bill. We find Bill receiving it, and then Bill originating an answer or acknowledgement as Bill', which acknowledgement is sent back to Joe'. Joe has said, for instance, "How are you?" Bill has received this, and then Bill (becoming secondary Cause) has replied to it as Bill', with "I'm O.K.," which goes back to Joe', and thus ends the cycle.

     Now what we call a two-way cycle of communication may ensue, as in Graph "B".

     Here we have Bill originating a communication. Bill says, "How's tricks?" Joe receives this, and then as Joe' or secondary Cause, answers "O.K., I guess," which answer is then acknowledged in its receipt by Bill'.

     In both of these graphs we discover that in Graph "A" the acknowledgement of the secondary Cause was expressed by Joe' as a nod or a look of satisfaction. And again, in Graph "B," Joe's' "O.K., I guess" is actually acknowledged by Bill' with a nod or some expression signifying receipt of the communication.

     If both Joe and Bill are "strong, silent men" - highly aberrated - they would omit some portion of these cycles. The most flagrant omission and the one most often Understood as "communication lag" by the auditor would be for Joe in Graph "A" to say "How are you?" and for Bill to stand there without speaking. Here we have Joe causing a communication, and Bill failing to continue the cycle. We do not know or require, and we are not interested in, whether or not Bill, as the receipt point, ever did hear it. We can assume that he was at least present, and that Joe spoke loudly enough to be heard, and that Bill's attention was somewhere in Joe's vicinity. Now instead of getting on with the cycle of communication, Joe is left there with an incompleted cycle and never gets an opportunity to become Joe'.

     There are several ways in which a cycle of communication could not be completed, and these could be categorized as (1) Joe failing to emanate communication, (2) Bill failing to hear communication, (3) Bill' failing to reply to the communication received by him, and (4) Joe' failing to acknowledge by some sign or word that he has heard Bill'.

     We could assign various reasons to all this, but our purpose here is not to assign reasons why we do not complete a communication cycle. Our entire purpose is involved with the non-completion of this communication cycle.

     Now, as in Graph "A," let us say we have in Joe a person who is compulsively and continually originating communication whether he has anybody's attention or not, arid whether or not these communications are germane to any existing situation. We discover that Joe is apt to be met, in his communicating, with an inattentive Bill who does not hear him, and thus an absent Bill' who does not answer, and thus an absent Joe' who never acknowledges.

     Let us examine this same situation in Graph "B." Here we have, in Bill, an origination of a communication. We have the same Joe with a compulsive outflow. Bill says, "How are you?" and the cycle is not completed because Joe, so intent upon his own compulsive line, does not become Joe' and never gives Bill a chance to become Bill' arid acknowledge.

     Now let's take another situation. We find Joe originating communications, and Bill a person who never originates communications. Joe is not necessarily compulsive or obsessive in originating communications, but Bill is aberratedly inhibited in originating communications. We find that Joe and Bill, working together, then get into this kind of an activity: Joe originates a communication, Bill hears it, becomes Bill', replies to it, and permits Joe a chance to become Joe'. This goes on quite well, but will sooner or later hit a jam on a two-way cycle, which is violated because Bill never originates communications.

     A two-way cycle of communication would work as follows: Joe, having originated a communication, and having completed it, may then wait for Bill to originate a communication to Joe, thus completing the remainder of the two-way cycle of communication. Bill does originate a communication, this is heard by Joe, answered by Joe', and acknowledged by Bill'.

     Thus we get the normal cycle of a communication between two terminals, for in this case Joe is a terminal and Bill is a terminal and communication can be seen to flow between two terminals. The cycles depend on Joe originating communication, Bill hearing the communication, Bill becoming Bill' and answering the communication, Joe' acknowledging the communication, then Bill originating a communication, Joe hearing the communication, Joe' answering the communication, and Bill' acknowledging the communication. If they did this, regardless of what they were talking about, they would never become in an argument and would eventually reach an agreement, even if they were hostile to one another. Their difficulties and problems would be cleared up and they would be, in relationship to each other, in good shape.

     A two-way communication cycle breaks down when either terminal fails, in its turn, to originate communication. We discover that the entire society has vast difficulties along this line. They are so used to canned entertainment and so inhibited in originating communication by parents who couldn't communicate, and by education and other causes, that people get very low on communication origin. Communication origin is necessary to have communication in the first place. Thus we find people talking mainly about things which are forced upon them by exterior causes. They see an accident, they discuss it. They see a movie, they discuss it. They wait for an exterior source to give them the occasion for a conversation. But in view of the fact that both are low on the origin of communication - which could also be stated as low on imagination - we discover that such people, dependent upon exterior primal impulses, are more or less compulsive or inhibitive in communication, and thus the conversation veers rapidly and markedly and may wind up with some remarkable animosities or mis-conclusions. Let us suppose that lack of prime cause impulse on Joe's part has brought him into obsssive or compulsive communication, and we find that he is so busy outfiowing that he never has a chance to hear anyone who speaks to him, and if he did hear them would not answer them. Bill on the other hand, might he so very, very, very low on primal cause (which is to say, low on communication origination) that he never even moves into Bill', or if he does, would never put forth his own opinion, thus unbalancing Joe further and further into further and further compulsive communication.

     As you can see by these graphs, some novel situations could originate. There would be the matter of obsssive answering as well as inhibitive answering. An individual could spend all of his time answering, justifying or explaining - all the same thing-no primal communication having been originated at him. Another individual, as Joe' in Graph "A" or Bill' in Graph "B," 'night spend all of his time acknowledging, even though nothing came his way to acknowledge. The common and most noticed manifestations, however, are obsssive and compulsive origin, and non-answering acceptance, and non-acknowledgement of answer. And at these places we can discover stuck flows.

     As the only crime in the universe seems to be to communicate, and as the only saving grace of a thetan is to communicate, we can readily understand that an entanglement of communication is certain to result, but we can understand - and much more happily - that it can now be resolved.

     That which we are discussing here is minimally theory and maximally derived from observation. The main test of this is whether or not it resolved cases. and be assured that it does.

     Flows become stuck on this twin cycle of communication where a scarcity occurs in (1) origination of communication, (2) receipt of communication, (3) answering of communication given, (4) acknowledging answers. Thus it can be seen that there are only four parts which can become aberrated in both Graph "A" and Graph "B," no matter the number of peculiar manifestations which can occur as a result thereof.

     These observations of communications are so vital that a considerable difference amongst case results comes about between an auditor who does acknowledge whatever his preclear answers and an auditor who does not. Let us take "Auditor G" and we discover that he is running Opening Procedure of 8-C on a preclear, but that at the end of two hours of Opening Procedure of 8-C the preclear has benefited very little. Then let us take "Auditor K." The auditor does 15 minutes of Opening Procedure of 8-C and gets very good results on the preclear. The difference between Auditor G and Auditor K is only that Auditor G never acknowledges any answer or statement or communication origin on the part of the preclear. He simply continues doggedly with the process. Auditor K, on the other hand, is willing to let the preclear originate a communication and always acknowledges whenever the preclear concludes the action called for in a command. or when the preclear volunteers a verbal answer. In other words, G did not answer or acknowledge - but ran the process with mechanical perfection, and K both answered and acknowledged as well as originated orders. The fact that the scarcest thing there is is the origin of orders or communications, and the fact that G was at least doing this, was enough to cause G to get some improvement in the preclear, but he would not get anything like the improvement obtained by Auditor K.

     Silence is nowhere desirable except in permitting another to communicate or waiting for another to acknowledge. The auditing of silence will wind the preclear in a perfect fish-net of aberration. The total process which remedies this is remedying the scarcity, by whatever means, of the four parts of a two-way communication.