CHAIN SCANNING

A lecture given on 19 December 1950

High- speed Straightwire

We have been working on a new technique which might be called Lock Scanning. The history of this technique is very interesting in some respects.

About three years ago I had a method of clearing up cases rather rapidly. I will be very frank with you; my time was limited then to such an extent that I had time only to key out the very easy cases, and on tougher cases, only to carry them far enough so that they were very easily resolving toward this end. It was very necessary that a faster technique be developed than the one I was using at first, so I started a process of breaking engrams and locks.

It is obvious that if you get basic- basic out of a case you have unlocked the most serious point of that case, because you have picked up the earliest moment of anaten. It is very important to pick up this earliest moment, because anaten— true anaten— doesn’t really start to come off until you have started to release it in the earliest moments of the case. Therefore basic- basic is quite important.

The way I used to handle basic- basic was to find it and go back to it and erase it, but when I had erased it I would have a complete record of it. From that record I could have the person chain- scan out the engram, phrase by phrase, as long as I could find these phrases that were in the engram. I would just say, "All right, you can now run this forward to present time, touching each time these words have appeared," and the person would go ahead and do it. I noticed that the person would run through this with increasing speed.

The first time was rather slow. For instance, if the first words of the engram were "I hate you," he would start picking up "I hate you" all the way up the bank, and the first running would be rather slow. Then when you made him go back to that earliest moment there and do it again, he would come up a little faster. And he would go at increasing speed until, the last time he did it, it would be from basic- basic to present time in the blink of an eye. We would often get enormously effective line charges off the case. You could start a case laughing this way.

By the way, I am not now giving you the technique; I am just giving you the history of the thing.

Then you went to the second engram, the closest one to basic- basic which you could recover, and erased that, and then you ran each phrase of it up to present time. Then you got the next engram and erased that, and ran the phrases up to present time so as to get each phrase out of it.

In order to get the case unburdened you very often have to knock some charge off the upper part of the case. By hitting it in this fashion you can often loosen up the charge. You can get pretty fast results this way, but you can also ball up cases. You can really foul them up. For instance, if a fellow starts in at basic- basic and he has gotten the words "I hate you" out of that, then he starts up the line and at about three months prenatal he hits "I hate you; control yourself," the preclear can really fly out of control.

Then the auditor has to search hard until he finds where it slipped up so that he can get that engram to reduce. Then he can go back and try to scan this thing again, and the chances are that he would get away with that phrase.

Or the preclear could get to a phrase that said "Come to me; we want to be all together" halfway up through the prenatal area; he would come up to this point and suddenly the whole case would wind up. The auditor might not even have the phrase and the fellow would practically go into a spin. The preclear’s time track would collapse from top to bottom on this grouper, and then it would be up to the auditor to go back and use all the wit and wile he had in order to knock this grouper out and reduce the engram in which it appeared. He would have to find the earliest time the grouper occurred in this case and reduce the engram and then scan it out phrase by phrase.

This was the technique which was in use.

You can get a concatenation of running locks started in basic- basic and be quite effective about it, because engrams are fortunately repeated in a bank many times.

This was a jackleg method which was about as safe to have around as a leopard cub that somebody was sticking with an icepick. It isn’t a technique you would suddenly put into the hands of somebody who cared more for his preclear and less for research. I cared a great deal for research. The point is that it wasn’t the kind of technique you would turn loose easily, so you had to have a better technique. But I evolved quite a few techniques, and finally all of these techniques evolved into what we call Standard Procedure. We have codified Standard Procedure and we can go on and use that.

As far as actually running engrams is concerned, Standard Procedure was modified last month for accessibility only, and all that was added to it was just better ways of getting accessibility to a case. That is the way you get out engrams, and how you can be darn sure you have gotten all the engrams you want out of the case. And that’s how you get the whole engram out, because we find this other method leaves pieces of engrams on the case, which is not good.

This is history I am giving you. There was a fellow out in Honolulu who had the idea of installing an "examiner circuit." (A lot of his cases out there in Honolulu are now being untangled by the Foundation.) His idea was that you told the preclear, "You have in your head an examiner circuit and it’s going to run out all the engrams, and all that is necessary for you to do is have this examiner circuit spot the earliest engram. Okay, it has spotted the earliest engram. Now run out the chain of engrams. That’s fine, and I’ll be back in two hours."

That was Examiner Therapy (E- therapy) as I saw it operate. This wasn’t any good.

Even freewheeling will take a circuitry case and snarl it up, because the fellow will start running engrams on himself as soon as he gets a "control yourself" in view. That is a very bad business, so you shouldn’t ever run freewheeling on a circuitry case, and in view of the fact that nearly all cases have some circuitry it practically cuts out freewheeling.

Two of the research auditors back in Elizabeth started to do something with this examiner circuit, and what they developed was not in the least bit dependent upon the idea of Examiner Therapy. They developed something else called Chain Scanning. They went back early in a case and found part of an engram that was part of a chain, and then they would scan this forward to present time in the chain. They would run it all the way forward to present time, going over it several times. And they developed with this the technique of commanding or ordering the speed of scan. The auditor can regulate how fast the scanning takes place.

There are four rates of scanning: There is vocal, in which the aberrative phrases are vocalized; there is non- vocal, in which the person goes up the line and does not utter these phrases, but just spots them in passing; there is accelerated rate, in which you go about five times the normal speed; and then there is maximum rate, which is just as fast as they can be run in a chain. This might be considered to be a lateral running of engrams; you are running portions of these engrams all the way toward present time. This, with some modification, could be considered to be Chain Scanning.

The first thing you do in Chain Scanning is to consult a flash answer arrangement in the file clerk as to "What is the name of this chain?" He gives you some name for it. "Can we scan this chain?" and he gives you a flash. If he says no, then you ask, "Is there another chain we can scan first?" He says yes, and you ask, "What is the name of this chain?" He says, "It’s the embroidery chain," or something.

So you go early on this chain, get the first phrase on this chain, have it repeated two or three times, and then you run it up to present time. Sometimes you run it at maximum rate three or four times, just as fast as the person can scan, and then you slow it down and say, "All right, run it at vocal rate."

One of the things you must do before you start running any one of these chains is ask the preclear "Are there any groupers here?"

And he says, "Yeah, there are six groupers."

"All right, run the first grouper." You get the groupers off the line and then you can scan. This is Chain Scanning.

If action phrases exist as such, then chain- scanning through engrams will not work. However, if action phrases have no action, then Chain Scanning will work. In other words, if you trigger a bouncer over once— just once— then that bouncer activates.

I was asked whether it was possible to nullify action phrases so that Chain Scanning would work. This comes down to the question "Can you stop one engram from functioning by putting another one into a person’s mind?" In other words, can you give a person a hypnotic suggestion which will nullify his engrams? No. Therefore, it wouldn’t even do you any good if you said to your preclear "Now, can you run this without paying any attention to action phrases?" Certainly he is going to pay attention to action phrases. You might get a flash and you might not.

All of these considerations sum up to the fact that Chain Scanning as done postulates that some sort of use might be found for this technique. At this point in the examination of the subject we could consider Chain Scanning as being very dangerous— something not to be used or tolerated, actually.

So the problem is this: Here we have a mechanism and we don’t know what it does. What is it good for? I had a brainstorm a short time ago— the hurricane roared at 190 miles an hour between my ears— and I said, "I wonder if you can chain- scan out auditing. Supposing you chain- scanned out auditing, just auditing." I had already spotted the fact that this might be used for locks. Obviously, if you went through engrams that was one thing, but to go through locks, that was something else— and particularly late locks. The thing looked like it ought to be safe for late locks and so forth. It looked like you could do something for them.

I started to work on a little experimental project and ran a very few people. I did one of these medical series; I tested it hardly at all, like they do on a new drug before they release it. The point is, here is a use to which this could be put; so how effective is it? Now, I can see how effective it is when I use it, but how effective is it when someone else uses it? I don’t know, but a considerable change of tone took place on those I used it on. And evidently engrams which have been restimulated by auditing but not reduced are held in restimulation only because of the auditing, and by chain- scanning out the auditing, those engrams which have been restimulated by auditing are patted into place; in other words, they go back into a destimulated condition. This could indeed be a boon, particularly to the instructors in a certified auditors’ center. If a certified auditor takes a case, no matter how thoroughly badly it has been audited, no matter how badly it has been restimulated, and chain- scans out that auditing in a matter of an hour, two hours, or however long it takes, and gets all the engrams back where they were before the preclear was ever audited, this is indeed a boon to all concerned.

Now, there are two other chains which are of vital importance to the Foundation. The first one is the chain concerned with the auditing one has done on preclears— in other words, the restimulation one picks up while he is in the chair. There is a possibility that with all of the dozens or hundreds of hours of auditing an auditor does he picks up quite a lot of aberrative phrasing and so forth from preclears that he audits, so there is a chain there which consists of everything which preclears have said while he was auditing them. Handling that chain would settle an auditor’s case, wouldn’t it? The auditor can have it chain- scanned out of him so he doesn’t get so badly restimulated.

The other one is invalidation of Dianetics, as a chain. You start back along the line with the first invalidation, such as a nasty news article, and you chain- scan on up to present time through these invalidation’s of Dianetics. That picks up morale a little bit.

With these three things you can pretty well destimulate a case. In other words, the world might look a lot brighter.

Now, this postulates something very interesting. This postulates you might be able to chain- scan out Chain Scanning. If one can do that, then one can use Chain Scanning. In other words, one can do practically anything to a preclear except stamp on his face and the curse can be taken off.

The only place where this wouldn’t work would be in trying to chainscan standard first- week auditing— the kind of auditing that sends the preclear completely inaccessible so he could not be chain- scanned! So there is a borderline there where a person can be chain- scanned and a person cannot be chain- scanned.

Chain Scanning destimulates a case, but when you have a person up to a point where his file clerk will flash to him "Yes, I’m clear," and you cannot find any more engrams to chain- scan, a professional auditor can come along and say, "Lie down. Shut your eyes. Now go to basic- basic," and the fellow will run an exploder. He will run engrams, in other words, and the more engrams he runs, the better he feels. So chain- scanning a case destimulates it, but it does not abolish the engrams even when you are chain- scanning engrams. It makes the case feel better; you can raise the tone. That’s good enough.

Don’t fall for a "chain- scanning clear." I had a chain- scanning clear presented to me. I said, "Lie down on the couch. Close your eyes. Let’s go back to the first engram necessary to resolve the case," and he ran an engram. The two people who were holding their breaths to find out whether or not they had really done a good job on this thing looked with great horror at this fellow running an engram, and then leaned over to me and whispered, "Well, the file clerk told us it wasn’t necessary to run them all, you know."

This is a technique which at its highest reaches will create a temporary lock clear, and a lock clear is merely a destimulated case where you can’t find any more locks to chain- scan out, and Standard Procedure is then very much in order. But after you have used Standard Procedure for a while, it might do a lot of good to chain- scan off the locks again. In other words, this technique can be woven in that way. It can be brought in at the end of every session. At the end of every session, the auditor just chain- scans off what he has done. He just runs it off, maximum rate, then accelerated rate, then vocal rate, and then he goes over it a couple more times at maximum rate and it is gone. In other words, it would take him about ten minutes to scan out his own auditing. It is a substitute canceler. It flattens out the engrams.

Here is a summary of the method: First you explain to the preclear the four speeds of scanning in this lateral running and that you are going from phrase to phrase, from the earliest incident up to present time and so on. They seem to do this anyway to a large degree. Then put the preclear on the couch, put him in reverie and tell him to close his eyes. And then you start to work on a flash- answer basis. You ask him for a flash answer: "Can we scan out the auditing?"

If you get a yes on the auditing chain, send him back to the first session of auditing and have him repeat a couple of the early words of auditing, possibly the installation of the canceler. Then you ask him to scan forward to present time at maximum speed through all the auditing.

You will find by scanning locks that groupers are relatively ineffective, and that it is not absolutely necessary to spot these groupers out. If you started to spot groupers in the auditing itself, at first it might be very complicated. So you just tell him to chain- scan forward through all the auditing to present time at maximum speed. You return him to that incident, make sure he is at that point on the track, and then you tell him to begin scanning and he runs forward to present time. Usually when a preclear is doing this ably and well he will run forward so fast that it will just be a blur. Run him over this to present time, run him back to the first session of auditing again, and start him on through again at maximum speed. Get him through this once again.

Now you can start the preclear at vocal rate. Tell him to vocalize each phrase as it comes up if the phrase is especially aberrative, and tell him to scan forward. Make sure the preclear understands that he is scanning the auditing, not scanning through the engrams which have been run on him. You scan him forward to present time at vocal rate. When he gets to present time you go back again and scan him forward once more, instructing him this time to scan any new aberrative phrases which come up.

You are not asking for repetition over and over on these phrases, because you are only running locks.

Actually, Chain Scanning could be said to be in the category of a sort of high- speed Straightwire.

Now you scan the preclear forward to any new phrases which show up that are especially aberrative, and return him up the line again to present time. You have to tell him to let you know when he is in present time, otherwise you have no way of knowing and he is liable to lie there for three or four or five minutes while you are waiting there patiently, and he has been in present time all along. So instruct the preclear each time to tell you when he gets to present time.

Then start him back at the beginning again and chain- scan him forward from the first moment of auditing toward present time at accelerated rate, which will be a little faster. Then you chain- scan him once more at maximum rate, which will be very fast. Put the preclear through at maximum rate three to five times. You will find that new data keeps showing up along the track. Usually, by the way, he will get off some anaten, and when you get him up to present time you can tell whether or not you have gotten all of it by whether any of the somatics which he got after he began to be audited are still with him. People will sometimes pick up somatics in the process of being audited; all these somatics should disappear. The engrams then, theoretically, would destimulate.

If you want to continue on with Chain Scanning, you ask the person to chain- scan out invalidation’s of Dianetics or the times he has audited people. Chain- scan out all his preclears and everything preclears have said while being audited, on forward to present time. In other words, you can get rid of chains of locks of this description.

Ask the file clerk each time, "Can this chain be run?" For instance, you might say, "Let’s chain- scan out all the auditing you have ever listened to, all the things your preclears have ever said to you. Now, can you scan this? (snap!)" If you get a no, you say, "Do you have to scan another chain first?" If you get a yes, you say, "Give me the name of the chain. (snap!)" A name will flash, and you tell him to go to the first phrase in this chain of locks. You ask if you have to run through any engrams to chain- scan off this one. And whether he gives you a no or a yes, understand that you have to be careful there that he chain- scans locks, not engrams.

Occasionally you will find that you have to run an engram first; you may have to go right into the case on Standard Procedure and run out one engram. You ask for the engram that prevents you from chain- scanning this chain. After running out the engram, you then ask the preclear if you can chain- scan out the named chain which is preventing you from chainscanning a later chain. If you get a yes, you chain- scan out that chain, and when you have that chain deintensified you say, "Can you now chain- scan all the preclears you have ever listened to?" "Yes." So you start in, and by the same process you pick up all the aberrative phrases of his preclears. That should lay back all the engrams which have been restimulated in his auditing of others.

Now, if you really want to finish up the case royally, you chain- scan out your own auditing that you have just done, run the person through a pleasure moment, give him some Straightwire, and bring him out of the session.

You know how Straightwire will bring new data to view. If you chainscan a highly occluded case on Monday, by Wednesday you would be able to chain- scan some more off this case. You can treat Chain Scanning as a sort of high- speed Straightwire addressed to locks.

Let me give you a tip on running out control phrases: Sometimes auditors sit around and echo a lot; they do quite a lot of echoing. As a matter of fact, I have done a lot of echoing myself with unwilling people who would not repeat very much, and I have repeated for them. It is effective, but when you start chain- scanning out the auditing you will find that if you have said "Control yourself" as a repeat several times, you are liable to run into this control phrase. And a phrase like "Control yourself" in a lock where the auditor has repeated the phrase for the preclear will very often cause the preclear, in running it out, to fail to chain- scan at that point. The preclear will go off and he won’t get a flash answer. If you don’t get a flash answer with Chain Scanning you will know you have hit one of these control locks. Usually they are very easy to knock into view.

When an auditor knows his preclear will have an extended period during which he will receive no processing, or on the last day of an intensive processing period for a preclear, Chain Scanning can be used to knock out locks and auditing locks and to get useless stuff off the case in order to bring the case up as high as possible. Thus Chain Scanning can be used as an adjunct to Standard Procedure in picking up bogged- down cases or in polishing up cases we want to let ride for a while.

I chain- scanned a rejection chain once with quite marked results. I chain- scanned from the first time Mother had ever rejected the child, on forward through all rejections to present time. It does not take very long to run such a chain. You run for five minutes or something like that at a high speed and then start vocalizing it, and some of the tension will go off it.

After a case has been chain- scanned thoroughly through a lot of material, you can still find engrams. You can make this person a lot better by Chain Scanning. He feels fine, but you can make him feel a lot finer by starting to run out engrams by good auditing in Standard Procedure.

There is another thing which comes up on Chain Scanning in which you might be interested. The preclear will actually, if asked, name the central chains of his case. You can ask him, "How many chains necessary to reduce in order to clear your locks?"

And he might say, "Seventeen."

"The name of the first chain will now flash into your mind. (snaps)"

And he will say, "The dumbbell chain" or something like that.

Each one has a reason for it, and maybe this one is the first time his little brother ever called him a dumbbell, and then we get insults all the way along until present time. Or we get a grief chain. I have seen a whole lot of grief run out. Also, I have watched a whole chain of electric shocks run out with this. The tension came off these shocks. Afterwards by Standard Procedure you could go in and audit up the locks, but you would be auditing locks that were not in high restimulation because you would be getting the restimulation off the locks with the Chain Scanning.

I have seen run out all the times an alcoholic got drunk, and a lot of restimulation was taken off that chain in this fashion.

Consider this as a means of flattening chains of locks, and in that light it is highly reasonable. It becomes much less reasonable when you start running in the prenatal bank, running through engrams, chopping them off this way and that, and running the scanner over the side of this engram. You go up past "I hate you" and this one says "Get away from me" and the person comes up to present time; then you run into another engram which says "It all happens at once," and the case crashes. These things are not good.

Chain Scanning cannot be run auto.

Apropos of nothing, you will find that your preclear will sometimes flash- answer himself instead of remembering. Knocking out the auditing should cure him of that. It is not a healthy state of being.