The Story of S & D - by John McMaster

The "S & D" process is an important scientological procedure which addresses an individual's particular vulnerability to another's malicious or supposedly malicious intentions. It is indicated when a participant repeatedly loses the acknowledged gains they have already had from processing, or behaves in a highly unreliable manner. ("S & D," stands for "search and discovery")

This is the story of the development of that procedure, with some profound insights, by John McMaster, and is reprinted from The Heretic, Issue X. (See "Bon Voyage to John McMaster" in the Free Spirit 90.) - Hank Levin:

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I would like to discuss the development of S & D for the implications it had in the subsequent development of scientology technology. Had it not been designed the way it was, things might have gone a little differently.

Late summer, 1965. The mesage read: "Ron wants you to bring six of your best review auditors to his office at quarter past five today, and would you get it all organized?" When we were all there, he said that he'd gotten us there for a specific reason, and the reason was to evolve a particular process which he wanted to call "Search and Discovery."

Now, in the processing that we were doing then, which was mainly the power processes and power plus, we were getting some cases moving magnificently fast, others sort of medium, and some cases moving very slowly.

He said that there must be some factor that was sort of impinging on these cases that were moving slowly, and this process was to be called Search and Discovery simply because it was to search for that which was impinging on the slow gain case and the no case gain, to search for that and then discover it.

And he wanted us to evolve a technology whereby this could be done effectively.

We got together and decided that it would be a good idea to have a listing process to start off with on the search side of it, and then we would discover an item.

We decided the listing question would be sonething along the lines of "Who or what is causing difficulty?"

We made a list and then we'd get whatever the item was, and then put the item into a Represent ("Who or what would item represent?"), and then list away. If the item on the first list had been a person, one blew the charge off that person by getting the Represent out of it.

And on this "Who or what would item represent?" the PC invariably found a "What" in relation to his own behaviour or his own conditions of existence that got restimulated by the actions of the other person and caused what appeared to be the symptoms of a "Potential Trouble Source," as it was later called.

It was something that the person had in his own makeup, his own behaviour pattern, his own mental mass, that had a sort of magnetism for the behaviour of a certain person.

The other person did something, and this particular thing, in the whole pattern of the PC, would cause an upset and prevent the PC from looking as clearly as he or she might look, from wanting to win, from doing whatever one was expecting the person to do.

So we ran this listing process and the represent process, and we got what we got, and took the results to Hubbard. And as I said, invariably it was a "What". And you can't declare a "What" that exists in the magnetic field of the PC to be a suppressive person.

There was a tremendous improvement in the PCs because they found out that in actual fact, when they were so-called "being the effect" or "being suppressed" by someone else, it was because of themselves and something that they had that had compelled them to become the effect of the other person's behaviour.

But there was another thing some of them found out. Some people found out that in their behaviour patterns they did things and behaved in such a way that they compelled the other person to commit suppressive acts towards them.

For instance, here's me. And, not during the auditing session but in my everyday life, I am doing something with a regularity that compels another, who also has something in his magnetic field that my behaviour restimulates, to be suppressive towards me, and I am in actual fact causing it.

So there were two aspects that people began to find in this auditing:

1) they had something in their own space that got restimulated by another person's behaviour, and when they found that and blew it, they no longer were the effect of that person's behaviour; and

2) they were unknowingly doing something that was compelling the other person to act suppressively towards them.

And everyone run on this process, with the listing and the represent, had far more case gain than is gotten from running up to the ethics officer and disconnecting from a so called suppressive person.

We were really thrilled, because these people, immediately after having had this kind of S & D process run on them, moved magnificently on the power processes.

We took the results to Hubbard, and he kind of hemmed and hawed and told us it was a little bit long-winded and we could do it faster another way. Eventually he changed the thing down to: "Who is suppressing you?", and it had to be a person. And when that person was spotted, the PC had to go to the ethics officer with the folder.

The ethics officer then had to find out whether the person would "handle or disconnect", and in most cases the ethics officer decided of his or her volition that the person was incapable of handling and compelled the person to disconnect.

Now if you look at the history of scientology from that point onward, late summer-autumn of 1965, what was happening?

Suppressive people were becoming a reality and the ethics officer was becoming an absolute necessity in any organization in order to safeguard your technololgy.

Well, nothing can safeguard technology better than perfect auditing. If you take the process and audit it perfectly, your technology is established.

Having this via of darting around the corner to the ethics officer just gives the auditor an out. If he can't quite manage the PC or he can't quite manage the process, or he can!t quite manage putting the two together, he always knows he can say "Well it's OK; if I can't quite manage this then it'll become an ethics matter."

When a person was not moving as quickly as the person ought to be moving, they then had to have this S & D process, and then automatically it went onto ethics lines.

So then standard technology was very much involved with ethics; you couldn't have standard technology without an ethics officer to handle these particular situations. So the suppressive person became a reality and the ethics officer became an absolute necessity in order to have the tech working and standard.

So now the PC disconnects from this "Who" the ethics offlcer regards as a suppressive person, and yet still intact is the "What" that predisposed the suppression in the first place. So the PC is still vulnerable to suppression.

He disconnects, has a bit of relief, and maybe until the end of that auditing intensive the PC is free from the impact of the other. But within the makeup of the person, that which predisposes the PC to being suppressed is untouched.

And the overt act of disconnecting from another, blaming another for one's own inadequacy, and the fact that one has this predisposition towards suppression, compounds the felony.

The felony of whatever one has done that makes one vulnerable or predisposed is still there, and that is compounded by the disconnection, which creates a heavy ARC break perhaps not only with the person being disconnected from, but with all the people to whom that person is connected.

So now you have the compounded felony. That thing which had come into restimulation in the auditing that should have been run out right there and then, is now being covered over aby another overt act, the act of disvconnection. And what does that do? It causes the prolongation of that condition which predisposed the PC to suppression in the first place.

S & Ds, such as they are run now, do not give permanent relief or release from anything. What they do is prolong the agony of potential suppression. So far from setting a person freer, they are in actual fact burying,and therefore prolonging the condition that predisposes and precipitates the suppression.

This "standard technology" is in actual fact ruining the whole potential of our aims and goals and purposes, because it is pressing out of sight that which we were fortunate enough to have surface, that thing that is predisposing the PC to feeling suppressed.

It is a very healthy sign when someone you are auditing suddenly has problems. So they say they're not making gains. So what? This indicates to you that something is in restimulation that prevents them from making gains and achieving their goals. This means you've got something right there and then, right at the surface, ready to be handled.

So you can do an S & D, but I suggest that you do it the way we did it originally, before it was changed to a "Who?" You might get this thing which has come into restimuation on the first listing, in which case it's gone. If you have to put it into a Represent list, well, you'll get a whole lot there.

Now, I didn't do this at the time, but it seems to me that you could then put in a third question if you do a represent out to another item and you still haven't blown everything.

You could say, "Now, how do you use so-and-so to make yourself vulnerable to suppression?", or a question of that nature. Then you have removed the predisposition to the suppression because that which was in the magnetic field of the PC that enabled the suppression to happen will never be there again, unless the PC puts it back. But it won't be the same one; it'll be another one.

So I hope this sheds a little light on the way and S & D could be run that could give gain for all time, rather than this temporary relief by committing an overt act on a fellow being on this planet at the same time as one is. It's not always such; sometimes one disconnects from people out of another time.

However, this is just a vast Q & A with reality. The reality is that somewhere in one's makeup is this predisposition to be suppressed, and when it is precipitatedd one behaves like a potential trouble source. So, get out what's in restimulation and remove completely and forever the chances of being suppressed in that particular way.

That is how we started out on Search and Discovery, and how I feel it could be done even now. It's not too late, for Heaven's sake! And we could get in, and do the job properly.