6211C01 SHSpec-206 The Missed Missed Withhold

     [LRH enumerates the many bulletins that have come out on missed withholds,
starting in February, 1962.  In spite of all this, the subject has not been
duplicated by students.  People keep picking up withholds, instead of missed
withholds.]

     All ARC breaks stem from missed withholds.  "I don't know exactly how to
get this across to you except to be brave, squint up your eyes, and plunge."
Get the missed withhold.

     A missed withhold is a withhold that people nearly found out about but
didn't.  You want to find out what people almost found out. A withhold is
something a PC did and isn't talking about.  It is not missed unless someone
nearly found out about it.  The missed withhold has nothing to do with what
the PC did or is doing.  It's not the PC's action.  It is the other person's
action and the PC's wonder about it. It often shows up as a recurring
withhold, one which the PC keeps giving you.  The charge keeps coming up
because of the restimulation, as yet unlocated, of someone possibly finding
out.  "A missed withhold has nothing to do with the PC.  it is another
person's action and the PC's wonder about it....  Forget that it is even a
withhold....  You are looking for exact moments in the ... lifetime of this PC
when somebody almost found out and he's never been sure since whether they did
or they didn't.  We don't care what they almost found out.  We only care that
they almost found out something.  That is the address to a missed withhold.
It's an other-person-than-the-PC's action.  It's an other person's action."
The PC is stuck in the unknownness of the uncertainty as to whether someone
else knew.  This blows when the PC spots it. A missed withhold is an overt and
a withhold plus a mystery.  The magnitude of the overt has nothing to do with
its evaporation.  The degree of mystery is what holds it in place.  If you
want to know what is sticking a thetan to something, look for the mystery
sandwich.  Even overts themselves wind up in the mystery of whether you should
have done it.  This causes withholding of further action.  All things boil
down to right conduct.

     So when you ask the PC for missed withholds, be alert for whether the PC
is giving you withholds or missed withholds.  The number of withholds a person
has on the whole track is undoubtedly staggering. You don't need to get them
all to clear somebody.  The whole anatomy of a game is O/W.  You gather
energies by the mechanism of O/W which result in solid-mass terminals, making
a game possible, etc.  In spite of all that, you don't have time enough to run
nut all the PC's overts, even for one lifetime.  General O/W does have its
uses.  It is useful for getting the PC into session and smoothing things out,
but it is generally too lengthy.  So to see a case go, "Sproing!", Ask the PC
for "nearly-found-outs".  "When I tell you to pick up a PC's missed withhold,
I want you to pick up another persons action, not the PC's.  And it is best
characterized as 'nearly found out'....  You are running the almost-discovered
track."

     "You'll never see anybody quite so upset as somebody who has been just
barely missed.  Look at a pedestrian who was not hit," or a bear that is
biting at a bullet [that just missed him], or an exam that you failed by one
or two points.  "It's the nearness of the miss" that counts.  It is a
mis-estimation of effort or thought.  A thetan's main attention is on
estimation of thought, effort, and look.  He wants to know how much look is a
look.  His certainties are all based on proper estimation of thought, effort,
look, etc.  When an error is made here, it is upsetting.  How much knowledge
is knowingness?  That is an estimation.  How much emotion does it take to be
emotional?  Enough to create the desired effect.  What is a proper symbol?
Etc.  You can estimate everything except how much mystery constitutes a
mystery, because that is a mystery!  You are now into the no-estimation band,
and it is all mysterious.  The not-knowingness of it is upsetting.
Not-knowingness that is probably known is especially painful, because of the
multiple not-know flows involved.  Take a not-knowingness and play with it
both ways:  They knew, but they didn't or couldn't have known.  You know they
knew, but you know they didn't know.  The four-way flows of a missed withhold
are painful to a thetan.  This is the stuff of which insanity is made.
Insanity in the effort band of the know to mystery scale is "can't reach/must
reach".  Insanity in the mystery band is a "did/didn't; must/mustn't know".
That is what a missed withhold is and what it is doing to the PC.  "It's just
pure mystery mucilage, ... and the thetan will stick right to it."

     Getting just the overt and withhold off, when there is an added mystery
of a missed withhold, doesn't produce an as-isness of the section of track
where the PC is stuck, because "the PC is not stuck with the overt [or] the
withhold.  The PC is stuck with the 'almost found out', so of course nothing
as-ises [if you only get the O/W's] and you get a recurring withhold." You
could get remarkable results running, "Get the idea of people nearly finding
out about you." You could run this on three flows.  This process would free up
track that the PC had never seen before, but which had been right in front of
his nose.

     So when pulling missed withholds, it is not what the PC did which is of
interest.  When pulling withholds, "get the name, rank and serial number of
the person who missed it.  [I] couldn't care less what was missed.  I don't
want the PC's action.  I want the PC's guess about the other guy." Get who the
PC thinks might know, etc., etc.  If you have gotten off his overts on
something and he still feels a bit weird about it, you are apt to think that
he must have more overts, so you keep after him for more.  This will send him
around the bend, since you are essentially cleaning a clean.  You have to
find:

     1. Who nearly discovered the overt.

     2. When.

     3. How often.

This is what is needed to complete the cycle that was started when the overt
was almost discovered.  Just as far as time is concerned, it is a mystery
sandwich.  The thetan is wondering whether a certain punitive track is going
to happen.  It doesn't, so that time doesn't exist.  The result in the
creation of mocked-up track that never actually appears on the track and
therefore hangs up in time. Not dropping the other shoe is like producing a
missed withhold.

     So you don't ask, "What have we failed to find out about you?" ask, "What
have we nearly found out about you and when did we nearly find it out?" The
first gets withholds; the second gets missed withholds.  The worst type of
missed withhold is where the PC is asking himself, "Which one of my crimes did
he (maybe) discover?"