6407C09 SHSpec-28 Studying -- Data Assimilation

     These are the points to watch in assimilating data:

     1.  Nomenclature: Knowing what a word means.

     2.  The subject matter itself: arrangement and understanding of the
         subject matter.

     Part of the issue of nomenclature is knowing what a definition means.  We
can't use psychiatric terms in scientology, because the field of psychiatry
has a different basis and purpose than ours, and their terms have implications
that would give utterly unwanted twists to our knowledge, if we used them.  It
doesn't matter that they are the "authorities".  An authority, in fact, is
someone who can produce a result.  The world has elected people as authorities
on subjects, when these people can't do the subjects.  So if you recognized
these authorities, you would get all crossed up with fields that had failed,
and that would enter a degree of failure into scientology.  So we leave their
technology and nomenclature alone.  We get results, so we are the
authorities.  The existing terminology is actually false, since it is from a
field that gives no result.

     Our terminology has evolved and has become fixed on the printed page.  We
have to safeguard what we've got, or knowledge gets wiped out.  We must first
try to evolve nomenclature cleverly, so that it won't conflict with earlier
terms.  Then we must carry it forward as a standardized item to maintain a
constant.  Another responsibility is to avoid developing too many new terms.

     Any technical field has specialized terminology.  They are all snob
languages, showing a superior understanding.  You don't dare use carnival
terminology in front of a circus performer, when referring to the same thing.
As one becomes more expert in a field and gets more familiar with a subject,
his terminology becomes less formal and serious.  It becomes more like slang,
having passed through a phase of formal terms.  We short-cutted this process by
leaving out the pompous formal nomenclature stage.  Reverence for nomenclature
is symptomatic of being at the novice stage of memorizing the terms.

     Knowledge is tremendously dependent on nomenclature.  This fact is almost
never appreciated by teachers and students.  They are trying to talk and use a
language that they don't know.  This can get so bad that they think the
subject is incomprehensible or that they are incapable of understanding it,
when in fact they just haven't grasped the meaning of some symbols being used
to designate things.  Or their grasp is fumbly, not instantaneous.  As a
person goes on studying past a point of uncomprehended nomenclature, he stacks
up the opinion that he doesn't know about it, carried on forward from the one
term that he didn't totally grasp.  He thinks he doesn't know or can't know a
subject, when in fact he only doesn't grasp the nomenclature.  The basic lie
that makes incomprehension persist is that it is the subject that is not
understood, when it is a word that is not understood.  A person will develop
an automatic comm lag at the point of the non-understood word.  He will
misassign the lack of understanding to whatever area it appears in.  A
comprehension of the nomenclature used is vital, in studying anything.  You
put yourself in the soup as soon as you leave one word not understood behind
you.

     Besides the subject of nomenclature, we have the subject matter itself:
the arrangement and understanding of it, i.e. what is being named.  One
should get a very thorough grasp of the thing under discussion.  A person can
misunderstand something that he has read because it conflicts with the usual
idea, or he can even find it unbelievable.  If you don't agree with something
that is true, it is either a misunderstood or there is a button that you are
running into.  When you find something unbelievable, be sure you know what you
are unbelieving.  First be sure that you have understood the words used.  Then
be sure that you have got the thing, the phenomenon, right.  Ninety percent of
the time you will find that you had something in crosswise.  In the other ten
percent of the cases, you can handle it by setting up examples of how it
applies to you and to life.  Get examples of how it is that way and how it
isn't that way.  You will generally find, then, that some button was in the
way of your grasping it.

     Following this sort of routine, you will find yourself able to study.
Former methods of study, what few there have been, have not been very
successful.  When there is no training available, about the only reliable
method of studying is to read everything you can find on the subject, from
cover to cover.

     In studying scientology, it is imperative to know how to study, since we
are studying that which we are studying with.  To classify students as fast or
slow or bright or dull is to make a false classification, since this
classification leads to no improvement of anyone's ability to study.  There
are students who can memorize words and pages virtually at a glance.  But this
does not guarantee that they will be able to do anything with what they
memorized.  You can find out, by seeing whether they can define the words.

     The direction and end purpose of study is understanding.  With an unknown
word or phenomenon in the middle of a subject, you will have mystery and
non-application.

     One of the primary criticisms of modern education is that it doesn't
immediately result in application.  You should be able to take any textbook
direction and, if you have understood it, apply it directly and effectively
without familiarity.  If you also have familiarity, as in studying auditing
while auditing, you should be a whiz.