6212C13 SHSpec-224 R2-12 Data -- Needle Behavior

A clean needle is a free, flowing needle, a slow, pleasant rise or fall,
which does nothing when the auditor is doing nothing. It has no trace of
irregular or reacting motion on the meter. A clean needle is like molasses
"being poured out of a bucket by a statue." Flawless mid-ruds will give you
one. It flows at a uniform rate of speed. The PC may have an intransigent
dirty needle, but after you find the first RI, you will get a clean needle.
The only problem with this is that you have to assess over a filthy needle. A
dead horse list does a minimal amount to clean the needle.

Cleaning a needle is not the same thing as cleaning a read off the
needle. You will see a clean needle when you have finished a list, before you
have done anything else. It will be slowly, flowingly rising or (more rarely)
falling. This is particularly visible on a Mark V E-meter. That is what you
should have before you start nulling, so as to be sure that you can null. If
you put big mid-ruds in faultlessly, without missing a read or cleaning a
clean, a clean needle is what you will see.

R2-12 is such a good process that it shows up any flaws in the auditor's
TR's, model session, or metering. You cannot use PC upsets as an excuse.
There is only one point in running R2-12 where things look awry: about half or
a third of the way through a list, when the list is getting hot and the PC
doesn't want to confront the next string of rock slams, or when the auditor
tries to null an incomplete list and finds the needle frequently getting
rough. In these situations, the PC will undoubtedly get somatics, misemotion,
etc. That is usual.

The final check for completeness of a list consists of asking:

1. Is the list complete?

2. Are there any more items?

3. Have you thought of anything else that should have gone on the list?

4. Could there possibly be anything else on the list?

If you get any reads on these questions, the list is incomplete.

The reverse of a clean needle, more or less, is a needle pattern, a
chronic needle behavior that a PC exhibits while the auditor is saying and
doing nothing. "A needle with a reaction on it is a dirty needle.... [It]
doesn't look like molasses being poured out of a bucket by a statue: any
ticks, any roughness, any slight speed-ups as it goes.... A dirty needle is
any needle that departs from the appearance of a clean needle.... It has
nothing to do with the auditor." He is doing nothing. "If [in mid-session
with an auditing cycle complete] it is doing anything that has any
irregularity if it of any kind whatsoever, that is a dirty needle, and your
mid-ruds are out!" Watch the needle for a count of five, doing nothing, and
that -- whatever you see -- is "the state of the needle". It is not how
sticky or unsticky the needle is. It is whether the needle is ticking at all
or halting at all. Seeing this, the auditor is expected to get mid-ruds in.
Not to do so is a goof.

A raw meat PC or a PC who has had previous bad auditing and has a filthy
needle presents a problem. On such a needle, you can't expect much until you
get your first RI. That is the easiest way to clean the needle, except that
you have to assess accurately through a dirty needle. That is your most
critical time in auditing. It lasts only as long as it takes you to get an
accurate first assessment. It should take you only the first hour of
auditing, assuming that you don't get a lot of dead horses. If you get a hot
item, just listing it will clean the needle. You don't even have to null to
clean it. After you have the first RI, you should be able to get mid-ruds in
pretty fast. The PC will probably rockslam on List One, anyway.

Needle characteristics tend to become misinterpreted. For instance,
people have failed to recognize rock slams. A rock slam is simply a slashing
agitation of the needle. A dirty read is a buzzing agitation of the needle.
A rock slam always has a slash in it. A rocket read "takes off. It always
goes to the right. It takes off with a very fast spurt and does a very rapid
decay, like a bullet fired into water. It's very fast. It goes, "Pshoo!" It
looks like it's got all of its motive power from its first instant of impulse,
with no additional motive power being imparted to it by anything. It's kicked
off, and it has no further kick, so it just rapidly dies out. How wide is
it? That's a silly question. I've seen them from a sixty-fourth of an inch
to a dial wide. You see, they are any width." A rock slam can have its first
slash mistaken for a rocket read, if the auditor has never seen a rocket
read. But the rock slam doesn't go in a spurt. It is uniform and has power
put to it the whole distance of its slash. It doesn't decay. It stops
suddenly. Most commonly, the first slash is to the left. Just one slash to
the left is enough to identify it as a rock slam, even if it doesn't
continue. It can be awfully tiny, too. The first stroke could be a sixteenth
of an inch, followed by a dirty read. A rocket read should never be confused
with even a one-stroke rock slam, because of its rapid decay. But a dirty
read is different. It "looks like an electric buzzer going. It doesn't look
like anything slashing, and a rock slam always slashes."

A dirty needle is caused by big mid-ruds buttons being out. Every PC has
a favorite button, as you find out when doing an eighteen-button prepcheck.
If you go beyond eight or nine buttons to get big mid-ruds in, you might as
well do a full Roll Your Own Pre-Hav [See pp. 333-334, above.], except that
you are now doing Routine 2 [See HCOB 5Jun61 "Processes Allowed" and p. 34,
above.], instead of R2-12. The only trouble with Routine 2 was that its
results weren't lasting, good though they were at the time. You have to find
items for the benefit to last. It is the need for mass that requires R2-12.

Item 1 is held in suspense in time because it is held in balance against
item 2, which is also held in suspense in time. This configuration can be
unsettled somewhat just by running item 1. The balance will stay out. But
full benefit, i.e. ten to fifty times as much benefit, will result from
running the whole package. If you leave too many of these single items around
the PC doesn't know what he is leaning against, now, and he doesn't think that
he has gotten any gain, even if he has. After about six unfound items, the PC
will start getting nattery.

Therefore, you will get only so-so gains on R2-12 if you don't really
find both sides of the package, although you may think you did. You can get
lots of gains if you go back to the lists that didn't end up with an RI and
extend them to get the item. You will get no gains if you represent an item
that rockslams or if you fail to complete your cycles of action. In fact, you
will get adverse results, especially if the PC was very interested in the
cycle you were on.

You must have a clean needle before you nul. A Mark V E-meter expresses
a clean needle much better than a Mark IV. It expresses a "ruds in" PC. When
the slightest little thing is out, the Mark V just doesn't look clean. It
gets less flowing, less "right". The Mark V just amplifies the Mark IV's tiny
little ticks. It is not more sensitive. It is just easier to read.

You can harass a PC in trying to clean up a needle, to the point where
the needle gets dirty, especially by asking a super-generalized question like,
"What are you thinking about?" If the PC knew what he was thinking about, it
wouldn't make the needle tick. Therefore it is useless to ask this broad a
question to clean the needle. You will do better to get in mid-ruds. On a
heavily charged list, the PC's think influences the needle more than on a
less-charged list. If the needle has been clean, then slowly dirties up,
don't leap to put mid-ruds in. The PC will feel interrupted and protesty if
you do this. When the needle gets dirty, you can't always put in mid-ruds, or
you get no-auditing. So when the needle was clean and gets dirty during
nulling, slowly twist the list around and show him as much as the needle has
been worse on and ask which item he has had thoughts on. Get his suppressed
and invalidated items cleaned up, and go on nulling. The PC may get allergic
to this after while, but this is not as bad as running mid-ruds all the time.

The rud that goes out on checking, especially goals checking, is "anxious
about".

Getting a needle clean is an operation that takes all reactions off the
needle when the auditor is doing nothing. If the list is complete but the PC
has some minor withhold from the auditor, the withhold will cause him to be
individuated, so he will think things as you assess which, because of the
missed withhold, will read and make items appear to read that are not
reading. You will have to clean them up. Also, a PC with an incomplete list
essentially has a missed withhold. Hence he has a dirty needle and the needle
reacts on everything the auditor says. The PC is vulnerable to auditor
actions [because of the inflow of the withhold]. He isn't critical yet, but
he thinks extra thoughts. He is individuated.

High sensitivity picks up all the analytical thoughts of the PC.

A really severe ARC break will give you a very nice flowing needle,
also.