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International Viewpoints #38 Aug. 1998 Reproduced with permission of Antony Phillips Black Fives and TROM An Internet Exchange. By Antony Phillips, Denmark, Allen Hacker, USA, Bill Fenton, USA, David Can, USA, Frank Gordon, USA On the Internet list for TROM, The Resolution of Mind, (a self-enhancement book by Dennis Stephens) the following occurred. It has been edited and permission obtained from the participants. Ed. Antony: THIS IS A CONTRIBUTION I intended to make when I took over the TROM-L administration post. First a little background data. I joined the Scientology movement (before it was a church) in England in 1954. Things were very different then, and among the prominent things was the question of mock-ups. A mock-up is a self created "picture". There were certain people who could not mock-up, or "see" pictures. I was one of those people, and we were called black cases (when we shut our eyes, what we saw was blackness). Scientology was supposed to be non-evaluative, but nevertheless, as a student on course, to be a black case put one in a very bad position in scientology. Later (about 1957) the only way to achieve the valued state of "clear" included a mock-up process (called Step 6) which I couldn't do. Inability to mock-up made me frustrated and unhappy in the late 50's. These black cases were also called black fives, there being levels of processing, the most able people beginning at one, while black cases came in low on the stage at five. Incidentally, I also came to realize that I did get "pictures" - my problem was that I did not see them, and I have successfully run techniques requiring getting mental pictures of past incidents. The most notable was being eaten by a lion about 1,000 years ago. The lion was there (in mental form) while I ran it - I just did not see it. It was there until it erased, at which point I complained loudly about not being able to see it, and was put, in disgrace, onto objective processes - we spent hours walking in the London streets spotting things. Different mental modes Then, emphasis on mocking up lessened markedly and I got gains from other processes. A few years ago I looked at NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and discovered that human beings had at least three different emphases on mental perception. Some saw best mentally, some heard best, and some were most aware of bodily things (feelings). So black cases were not so bad after all - we just had a different mental perception emphasis. Incidentally I got fed up with trying remedies for black cases. Allen: Thank you, Antony, for the background. I have something on Black 5s. I had a (business) client several years ago who had never seen a mental image in his life. He is 56 years old, and owns a prototyping machine shop. He builds the first copy of original designs. I often used to say to him, while explaining things, "See?" until one day he suddenly revealed a screaming frustration, "No, goddammit, I do not see! I understand, but I do not see!" So I converted my comprehension-checking to various forms of "Do you understand?". Things like, "Get it?" and "Do you follow me in my line of reasoning?" His progress as a business client doubled immediately! Huh! Here's a guy who programs a computer from blueprints to carve a part out of a block of stuff, and he has no idea what the part will look like before he gets it done!!! How can he program the machine? I program several hours a day, and even my conceptualizations of arrays and sort routines are visualized. He reads the blueprint differently than I do. I see lines that float up off the page and flesh out into a wire-frame 3-D and then shimmer into translucent holographic objects. He works from information: memory like a steel trap for data, not pictures. So he goes through the blueprints developing the data for the programming, and then just enters the data into the computer per some template, and patiently waits for the mystery to resolve - what is this thing going to look like? At that, point, we both got it. I got what his experience is like. He got why he loves his work so much: the resolution of secret mystery. New method Later, after several meetings of trying all kinds of things, including running incidents just to see what I would have to do to make it work for people like him (like you, Ant?), we had developed a completely different way of running incidents. It's based on information, yet it gets emotions, feelings and self-images as well as decisions. I now believe that trying to "remedy" a "condition" of Black 5 is a crime. The crime is trying to make an alternate form of perception wrong. The motivation is based on a preconceived notion that we're all the same. I had it myself. Until that client screamed that No, he did not see, I thought everyone did. I hadn't even paid that much attention to the stuff about Black 5's in the old school because the whole idea was completely unreal to me. No, it's not the intent that's criminal. It's the effects on the client that are criminal. The invalidation. The eternally being "missed" (not seen as-is). The unnamed feeling of distance and even alienation that comes from the sense that other people are talking about something that is only nonsense to you alone. And more, probably. (I could dig out the session notes: he gave me quite a list when we finally got a runnable process put together.) William: Your contribution to TROM-L about Black Fives was very interesting, Antony, as it hit rather close to home. Another Black Five In my early auditing (50s), I felt as you did, that there must be something wrong with me because I couldn't get this clear picture in color of my mock-ups or recalls. It was also my under-standing, at the time, that my visio would turn on somewhere along the line as a result of auditing. But this never happened all the way up through OT VII. There were, however, glimpses of it from time to time. A scene would flash on for an instant occasionally. Gradually I came to realize that certainty of what was there in mock-ups and recalls was sufficient. This was confirmed by Dennis in the TROM manuscript when he said that it is not necessary to perceive one's creations. I feel that the assignment of a lesser ability to what was called a "Black Five Case" was one of Ron's major misunderstoods. I learned in later years (late 80s early 90s) that experience is recorded as feelings (emotional vibrations). These feelings can be translated by a being into visio or any of the other perceptions when recalled.' When charge is being erased, it seems to me that the charge is in the feelings of the incident rather than in the visio. You are right when you say that black five cases are not so bad after all. But that judgment did hurt and caused me a bent wallet from the unnecessary many extra hours of Book & Bottle and other objectives. Thanks for sharing your experience. Dustin. I found the previous posts on black fives very interesting. I am glad that both Bill and Antony haven't found this too big a barrier. Here are my ideas, intended to promote discussion, of course. First of all, I do not see this as too much of a problem. It might even be a special ability, and could indicate an advanced case. I don't have pictures any more, only emotional vibrations as Bill has mentioned. Don't put things in the past unless you must. Timebreaking2 is an unfortunate term. It is not necessary to view across time. View what is, in present time. It is not necessary to know anything of the past. Perceive what is in the present time. Lack of an ability is never something that holds a person back. Those things we can not do are as important as those that we can. They define us, and they are part of the aesthetic that is the self. Somebody may soon communicate the ideas of TROM in a way that make pictures quite unimportant. Compulsive picture making The compulsion to make pictures is equivalent to the inability to make pictures. When I do RI, I actually avoid making pictures. I either send out energy effortlessly, and let it go completely. Or I receive energy effortlessly, letting it completely dissolve into my existence. Pictures are not observations of what actually exists or did exist, they are a representation of how our own creations interact with each other. There are other representations, most of which are more revealing of the true nature of things. Some may say this black five is a problem, but it may just be an indication of the type of path you should follow. If you can not make pictures, then you don't need to do so. Seek to do that which is aligned with your present abilities. When you seek after other abilities, then you are acknowledging that one state is more desirable than another. This leads to the compulsive playing of games. We are trying to avoid that. A visual picture is just a recording of a limited type of perception. This perception is sensitive only to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. This is a very limited range of the spectrum, and there is no particular significance to it. The world looks drastically different when viewed at different rates. We are carried into the future by a physical world that is changing at rates well beyond that which is perceptible. Most of us have an inability to willfully create change at a rate that is even remotely comparable to that which occurs all around us in our world. Frank: I have a few comments on the subject of the "black-five." The term originated with Hubbard, and he remarks upon it in his article on Straight Wire (Tech Vol. 2 on p. 229): "Now let's take this thing we call a Black Five...He only sees blackness in front of him...it prevents him from seeing pictures...and being victimized by all these pictures. We don't have a special category of (1) people who get pictures, (2) and people who get blackness. We have only one category. We get people who have pictures of various things and people who have pictures of special things." I assume what he's saying here, is that a picture is just a picture, and he's gone on to describe ways he's found to handle any picture, if you wish to do so. 1 Dustin W. Carr, Aug 31/97: 2 The general action of simultaneously viewing a 'then' and 'now' scene is called Timebreaking." TROM, p.14 3 RI in TROM refers to the Remedy of importance which roughly parallels the Repair of Havingness in Scientology. Ed. 4 Frank Gordon via [email protected], Sep 10/97. In Tech Vol I, under "Basic Reason-Basic Principles," he discusses on p. 150 two major types of cases: the wide-open (who has been invalidated) and the occluded (who has had his self-determinism interrupted). He then goes on to discuss ways to handle these. Now to TROM, Antony: TROM came along, and I was overjoyed with the first three levels, because, as I have said before in this Internet list, it seemed to be a refinement of the early things I had met in the 50's, and modeled on a do-it-yourself, don't pay high fees, basis. And the results I saw coming in matched my expectations. So with much difficulty in finding regular time to do it, I started running TROM an hour a day. I do not have a written record of it. But this is my memory of it: Unsatisfying, uncomfortable, drudgery. That was the way I found it. And this I believe was because I could not see the important things I was mocking up, or the things I was time-breaking. After a period I stopped. There was an old scientology principle that the preclear (receiver of therapy) should be getting wins all the time and I was not getting wins. I did between 15 and 26 hours at it before giving up. I was discouraged, and had had so much discussion and advice on black cases (difficulties with mock-ups) that I was unwilling to confront more. Since that time I have had some Idenics with good gains, a win from reading and applying an article on service facsimiles (a scientology term), and wins from a friend running a scientology objective process on me (called Book and Bottle - a marvelous process). So I am not dead, and I am not a non-moving case. But TROM did not work for me. People vary Incidentally, having escaped (some 15 years ago) from the cultish atmosphere of Scientology Church, where one indoctrinated fallacy was that scientology could solve everything, I take exception to similar claims and implications with regard to TROM. People do vary. What is right for one is not necessarily right for all. The myth that TROM is applicable to all seems likely to silence those who (like me) didn't get anything out of TROM. We have a fair number of silent people on this [Internet] list. But I wonder if, amongst the - silent, there are not one or two like me, who have not got anything out of TROM, but are impressed by it. Allen: I'm a guest on this list, but I don't have the TROM materials and have never tried it. It's on my list for my next research. But I have noticed the winning I hear about on this list. My slowness in looking at TROM has been because I understood from people's discussion of it that TROM includes highly visual processes. So I'd already discounted its universality. >From my peculiar place of having redeveloped all of my procedures so none ask for any particular sensory perception, I suspect I might have what anyone with a "missing" perceptic could use. I just wanted to let you know that I understand that you are not defective, just different. And to offer you some comfort that there are even more alternatives than commonly known about. Nirvana Antony: I also have another "gripe" with regard to TROM - and also other therapies. And that is the inclusion of the word and subject Nirvana. One of the things I object to in latter day scientology is the covert "implanting" of goals to adherents, rather than letting them decide their own life. A particularly nasty one is the goal Scientology "suggested" to adherents of "total freedom". And Dennis, unfortunately, has done something similar, by glorifying a state he calls Nirvana. Allen: I think we all do that, whether we mean to be misdirecting or not. It's something I've been seriously reconsidering with regard to Acceptance. Antony: My view of a therapy or religious practice is that it should be something to help people through the "downs" in life, and enable them to achieve full enjoyment of (and ability to produce) "up" in life. And that they should have freedom of choice on their goals and aspirations. And not have insidious hints as to what was "right" or acceptable. Allen: Absolutely. But that is the "practice" part. Most people want more than that in their lives, and there's whence comes our motivation for explaining our philosophies as well. I know that my procedures don't work well in the hands of other-school practitioners who unwittingly conform them to their own beliefs when theirs are different from mine. But I am also convinced that they will work very well delivered from a neutral perspective. So I for one have been pounding on Acceptance as a whole to see if it can't come apart into distinct parts that each can stand alone, among which any combination of the parts works as a complementary subset, and the totality of which works as a seamless whole that yet includes "options". It looks do-able but for the time involved. 1 Acceptance is a philosophy saying mainly that we must recognize the truth of what we are dealing with, in order to deal with it realistically, and a set of procedures that help people to find the truth about themselves and the way they define their world. Visit the ASC web page at httpl/www.asc.org or contact Allen, the founder and developer by email at [email protected], by postal mail at PO Box 390696, Mountain View, Ca, 94039 USA, or by Telephone: (650) 9643436. http://www.ivymag.org/IVy.html IVy, the familiar name for "International Viewpoints" is an on Cyber magazine, sent four times a year Internationally to those who subscribe. 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