6403C03 SHSpec-7 Auditing and Assessment

     The most complete body of knowledge there is is at Class VI.  It took
fantastic amounts of auditing to get it and codify it.  Fortunately, it is
codified, unlike other levels.  For instance, prehav levels are mostly items
out of actual GPM's or locks thereon.

     You are used to regarding assessment as something you use to find
something to audit.  More recently, you have regarded assessment also as a way
to find the source of an ARC break.  "Assessment is an activity which is
totally independent of auditing."  As you move up from Class IV, you find that
assessment commingles with auditing.  ARC breaks can occur because of the
auditor's failure to recognize the difference between assessment and auditing,
and failing to shift his gears from one to the other, or schizophrenically
trying to do both at the same time.  You must keep them separate.  For
instance, if the PC originates during your assessment, you must instantly
shift into an auditing cycle to handle it.  Then you return to the
assessment.

     "Assessment is addressed to the PC's bank.  It is not addressed to the
PC."  When auditing occurs during the assessment, it is because the PC got
restimulated by something assessed.  So the PC is now in need of an auditor to
duplicate it, so that it can as-is.  The auditor must really understand,
duplicate, and acknowledge, so that the PC knows that he has been understood.
All bad assessing, where the meter isn't operating properly, comes about
because the auditor can't shift gears smoothly and rapidly enough, between
auditing and assessing.

     An auditor can get the idea that assessment is impossible, if he has made
mistakes in assessing that resulted in the needle tightening up.  The failure,
in this case, is really an auditing failure, e.g. the auditor's inadvertent
question of the PC, "Is it all right if we assess this list?", an auditing
question, since it has not been fully handled, will now get in the way of a
successful assessment, in some cases.  The question went to the PC, an
analytical being.  The PC now expects to answer.  He may also be
insufficiently indoctrinated not to think that he should answer the assessment
questions too.  But if you don't complete the question cycle, you tend to
direct the rest of the assessment at the PC, not the bank.  Now the PC feels
as though he should be answering each item assessed.  You will be assessing
through the PC's withheld comm.

     When the auditor starts to assess, many PCs go on an automatically
withholding state of mind.  They got into this state of mind because the
auditor disobeyed certain tenets, e.g. the rule that when you ask the PC a
question before you assess, you should be sure that the PC has answered it to
his satisfaction and that he gets acknowledged, and that everything is handled
first, before you start the assessment.  And when you have assessed and have
gotten an item, and you ask the PC, "Is that your item?", this is an auditing
question, which may take awhile for the PC to answer.  You have just put him
into the middle of his long-standing whirlpool, so don't be amazed if it takes
awhile for him to complete the cycle.  He could be going, "Yeah: Yeah:  That's
why ... etc., etc., etc.," without having answered the question, Is it your
item?."

     "Assessment must never interrupt the auditing cycle, but the auditing
cycle may at any time interrupt the assessment....  Therefore the auditing
cycle is the senior action."  That doesn't mean that you necessarily spend
more time auditing than assessing in any given session, especially in R6.
Auditing is senior because auditing errors can wreck assessment.

     The auditor has two lines going out: one to the PC and one to the bank.
When these lines cross, you get sparks.  In assessing, you might use the form,
"Is it ... ?", which has the form of a question.  But don't expect an answer,
during the assessment.  There is no one home in the bank.  Don't fool around
with entities.  Using questions in assessments can bother a PC.  Sometimes it
works better to use statements, so as not to make the PC think that he should
answer.  "You won't get any reaction from the bank if the PC intervenes," but
you don't want the PC on a withhold or a decision not to be involved or
something that gets in the way.  The PC has to sit there with his ruds in and
no co-operative "assistance", and in good comm with the auditor, if his bank
is to be addressed.  Keep in comm and keep your cycles complete.  If the PC is
in good comm with the auditor, you can then address the bank easily.
Therefore, the way to put yourself in good comm with the bank is to put
yourself in comm with the PC.  But the PC being in good comm doesn't have to
mean that the PC is talking.  The auditors who assess PCs well are those who
are in good comm with the PCs.  Repairing assessments, when what is wrong is
out-comm, will make things far worse.  It invalidates things found on
assessment, etc.  If assessment goes out, repair the comm cycle.  Don't just
look for BPC in general.  Clean up the comm cycle.

     On any case, there is always BPC to be found.  That doesn't mean that you
should spend much time looking for it.  You could spent a lot of time trying
to clean the question, "Have I misassigned the bypassed charge?", because the
read you would keep getting is from your assigning the BPC to bank phenomena,
not session outnesses.  It could go on reading for twelve hours:  In the
presence of a session ARC break, you can go on finding other BPC continually
without the PC feeling any better.  And you will invalidate and suppress all
sorts of auditing work that was done.  So "ARC break assessments should begin
with, 'Is it a session ARC break? Is it an R6 ARC break?  Or is it an R4 ARC
break?" It can be as crude as, "What list do I use...."  Present-time upsets
always seem more important to the PC than past events, however tremendous the
past events may be.

     (Never use heavy steel electrodes.)

     Ninety-nine percent of your assessment trouble is really auditing cycle
trouble.  Assessment errors, themselves, can be so productive of upset that
the fact that there can be another source of ARC breaks can easily be
ignored.  Even with the comm cycle in perfectly, with the auditor and the PC
in complete rapport, the session can go up in smoke because of an assessment
error, especially on a wrong goal.  For instance, if the PC's item has been
bypassed, all you should do, if the PC ARC breaks, is to assess.  Don't try to
WC it with the PC.  "You must not audit [or] address remarks to the PC in the
presence of an ARC break....  You never ask the PC a single question, nor do
you acknowledge anything the PC says."  Experience has taught me that you
cannot communicate with somebody who is out of communication.  Don't audit in
the presence of an ARC break.  Don't ask a question; don't acknowledge what
the PC says.  You assess.  If you get confused and go into shock when the PC
suddenly throws the cans at you, take a break.  That is better than sitting
there, slack-jawed.  Don't stay near the PC.  Don't try to talk to the PC.
Get your wits sorted out, find where the ARC break started, and go assess.
Find the BPC, indicate it.  Get back in comm with the PC, and go on doing what
you were doing.  "The meter will read during an ARC break, [but only] on what
is causing the ARC break."  If you find some BPC on a case ARC break list and
the PC doesn't go VGI's, know that there is something else.  There is a
session ARC break or some different case ARC break.

     R2H can be done either as an ARC break assessment or as an assessment for
BPC, where you stay in comm with the PC during the assessment.

     Everything from Level IV on up depends on accurate assessment.  So the
auditor must be able to shift rapidly and smoothly from assessment to
auditing.  Just because R6 is mostly assessing, don't think that you can
delete auditing from the session.  If you try, you will have a disaster.

     "You assess when you assess.  You audit when you audit....  Don't ever do
them both at the same time....  Assessing is straight from ... auditor to
bank."

