((My comments in double parentheses - Homer))
 
                          CLEARING TECHNOLOGY
 
                                 FF - 2
                            22 February 1994
 
                  Copyright (C) 1994 Flemming A. Funch
       Redistribution rights granted for non commercial purposes.
 
     Joe --
 
     Just read the long compilation of messages to and from you that
Homer posted on a.c.t.  There were a few comments and questions for me
here and there, so let me try to catch the ones I remember.  I don't
have any of it in front of me right now.
 
     First of all, your honesty, straightforwardness, and energy really
shines.  It is a pleasure having you around.  I agree that our missions
are a little different, but that is fine.
 
     I enjoyed seeing your comments on Source and One/Many.  People have
many confusions on the 8th Dynamic, and I am glad we are aligned on that
one.
 
     You asked for my views on how to unite all the groups connected
with this activity (Clearing) and undercut what has been dividing us.
 
     Well, my approach was and is to promote agreement on the lowest
common denominators of Clearing and to increase tolerance of variations
of application on top of that.
 
     I noticed in the Free Zone how there were many different groups and
delivery terminals that weren't talking to each other at all.  They
called their subjects different things and they didn't like the other
guys who did it differently.
 
     So, I thought, well what is the common denominator between all
these people, what do they all agree with?  Well, the auditor's code
says most of it; that we run processes without invalidation and
evaluation, we intend to help people, and we continue until we get
results.  A few other basics add to that, like that we are addressing
spiritual beings that we regard as inherently being able to change their
situation.  The key pieces of the axioms: we are dealing with statics
who can make considerations and thereby shape their realities.
 
     Everybody in the Clearing field are following these few basic
principles.  If they aren't, then they aren't part of the Clearing
field.  If they judge their clients and treat them as being effect and
they don't finish anything, well, then that isn't Clearing, and I am not
much interested in it anyway.  If they DO do the few basic things then
they ARE members of the Clearing field in good standing.
 
     I also realized that "Clearing" was about the only thing that just
about everybody would admit to doing.  There was no agreement on any new
brand name to rally under.  Some people still called it "Scientology",
but that is trademarked by some guys who don't like to share.  Many
people made their own new names: Idenics, Primordiology, Dynamism,
Maieutics, Eductivism, "Applientology" or whatever.  Some of them are
good ideas, but wide agreement seemed impossible.
 
     My thought was to promote Clearing as just a technical activity, as
something you do, without a need for a cultish group we can all join.
People can make their own names, but it shouldn't keep us apart.  We are
the people who do Clearing.  That is not a cult or a religion, it is
something we do, a collection of technical principles we have found to
work.
 
     I also saw how so many people were still stuck in the church/no-
church schism.  Many people in the independent field were operating as
Secret Scientologists.  They still regarded themselves as
Scientologists, but they weren't in Scientology, they still had to do it
the Standard Way, but most of the ingredients were not under their legal
control.  That gives a weird out-of-valence situation.  One is a
dedicated Scientologist Auditor, but at the same time one denies having
anything to do with Scientology.  One has to use the standard materials,
but one has to do it in hiding so nobody finds out.
 
     My solution was to promote Clearing as a separate subject coming
together in a new unit of time.  It is a subject in its own right.  It
has some historic connection with the Scientology group, but it isn't
Scientology.  I define "Scientologist" as somebody in the CofS.  Most
Clearing people are not in the CofS.
 
     By starting to use terms that aren't owned by anybody, and by
emphasizing materials that aren't tightly controlled it can become safe
to be doing Clearing.  There is no need to use trademarked terms and
copyrighted materials.  We are a free group of people, who have the full
right to own our own subject, to disseminate it freely, and to stand up
proudly for what we do.
 
     My good friend G.  had done of lot of this work.  He had picked new
words for the troublesome trademarked ones and he wrote his own
materials presenting the subject in a new unit of time.  I was very
impressed by this new independent feel to the subject, so I decided to
latch on to it and also take it a few steps further.  I adopted most of
G's words, the most important being "Clearing" instead of "Auditing".
Not because it is trademarked, it isn't.  But because it communicates
better to regular people, and because it gives us a somewhat different
identity.  And still it is close enough to bring about wide agreement.
 
     I founded the "American Association of Clearing Practitioners" and
I started a magazine called "Clearing Today" with the direct purpose of
promoting and strengthening a separate independent identity and a common
agreement amongst us.  It is based on the lowest common denominators
mentioned above, upon treating the subject as a technical activity, not
as a cult, and upon using words and materials that are free to use.
 
     As a grass roots movement more and more people contributed to these
ideas in various ways.  More people started talking about what they do
as Clearing or Clearing Technology, more people called themselves
Clearing Practitioners and so forth.  People started talking about doing
Incident Clearing rather than Dianetics, Entity Clearing rather than
NOTs and so forth.  And as part of that more people began to openly
deliver and promote what they do.  And more people were writing
materials and developing new applications.
 
     Homer's establishment of alt.clearing.technology is of course also
a big step in that direction.  Calling it "Clearing Technology" as a
generic public domain term is a major coup in making it a free
independent subject.
 
     Scientology and Scientologists are also part of Clearing, to the
degree that they are aligned with the basic agreements; non-evaluation,
non-invalidation, positive intentions, and so forth.
 
     But notice that we make Scientology a sub-set of the overall
Clearing field, not the other way around.  We are not an illicit
offshoot of their organization.  Scientology is a particularly rigid
group of people within the subject of Clearing.  If they adhere to our
basic tenets they can stay around, otherwise they can play their own
game.
 
     Tracking down the original sources of clearing tech also
contributes to this.  It is particularly freeing for ex-scientologists
to realize that Hubbard didn't invent everything from scratch, and that
the CofS therefore can't control it.  Hubbard was a genius coordinator
and communicator, not the Source of Everything.  Incident Clearing was
first suggested by Freud, use of a meter for Clearing was first done in
1888, Korzybsky developed many of our basic principles in the 1930s,
like the clearing of semantic responses, converting 2-valued logic to
infinity-valued logic, and so forth.  A lot of the basic philosophy
comes out of original Buddhism.
 
     This general grass-roots movement, and the increased communication
level, as we are experiencing here, is working.  There is a more united
field than ever.
 
     Flemming
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith           This file may be found at
homer@rahul.net              ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/act/ff2.memo
Posted to usenet newsgroup:  alt.clearing.technology