MUs and Confused Ideas | LRH vs COB – draft
LRH — Founder of Dianetics and Scientology
“IT IS ALWAYS TRUE THAT A MISUNDERSTOOD WORD EXISTS AT THE BOTTOM OF THAT CONFUSION.”
HCOB 31 August 1971R
Word Clearing Series 16R, Confused Ideas
(Subject Vol. 2, p. 161)
“There is a basic law in Word Clearing:
AT THE BOTTOM OF ALL ALTERATION OF MEANING OR ACTION IS A MISUNDERSTOOD WORD.…
“Thus:
1. Discover what a person alters.
2. Find what came just before that.
3. Find the misunderstood word.
4. Get it looked up.”
HCOB 4 September 1971, Issue II
Word Clearing Series 19, Alterations
(Subject Volume 2, p. 170)
“CONFUSION OR ARGUMENTATION, UPSET OR STUPIDITY, COMES FROM A MISUNDERSTOOD WORD WHICH IS EARLIER THAN THE ONE THE PERSON IS NATTERING ABOUT.…
“If halfway through a course a student is very upset and he cannot understand his material, and he is being very, very stupid, then there is something in the very early part of the course that he is not discussing at all. This is always the case… Any confusion, stupidity or upset from a level of training always comes from a word misunderstood.”
HCOB 8 March 1989
Word Clearing Series 45, Word Clearing Key Datum
(Subject Volume 2, p. 244)
“The only times Word Clearing would seem to fail would be if there were errors such as:
a. No reads or missed reads
b. Ignored slips and flubs in nonmetered Word Clearing
c. Getting off into considerations or confusions without getting to the MUs that always exist at the bottom and then getting the MUs fully defined.
“The remedy is simple. If one has been word cleared on an area without a resolution of the original difficulty, then MUs have been missed and one need only report right back to a Word Clearer and say, ‘I want my MUs found!’”
HCOB 10 January 1977, Issue I
Word Clearing Series 55, How to Win With Word Clearing
(Subject Vol. 2, p. 280)
“The important data the student is seeking at his course level is IN the materials. The only way he will fail is by not confronting, duplicating, absorbing and using the materials before him exactly like it says.…
“The materials are adequate. If confronted, duplicated and absorbed, they will be used.”
HCOB 13 May 1971
Word Clearing Series 57, Student Grasp of Materials
(Subject Vol. 2, p. 284)
David Miscavige — SELF-APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, RTC
At the Maiden Voyage Anniversary Event of June, 2007, COB put forth the theory that standard word-clearing of LRH books doesn’t work:
“What if I did sit you all down and did have you all word-clear and you did properly clear your misunderstoods? And what if I told you that even if you did all that, you would still be confused, absolutely would not get the data, and that the very tech you had just studied would still be lost to you in terms of knowledge of, and application of the pure LRH data? Well, in fact, that is precisely what I’m telling you.”
He goes on to explain why:
“Well, for starters, I can tell you that the LRH datum still applies — misunderstoods. But not to leave you hanging, those misunderstoods weren’t yours… So whose were they? The transcriptionists.”
There are 139 entries under “word clearing” in the Tech Vol Index, and 24 more under “confusion.” This is in addition to the “Study Tapes,” XDN Tape 1, and Talk on a Basic Qual.
In all of these, there isn’t a single mention of word-clearing not working because of errors in the materials, real or imagined.
Similarly, no LRH reference attributes a student’s confusions to somebody else’s MUs.
These are interpretations of tech and made-up datums.