View source for Routine 1A-Problems (SHSBC 610703)

'''Series:''' Saint Hill Special Briefing Course (SHSBC)

'''Date:''' 3 July 1961

'''Speaker:''' L. Ron Hubbard

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This is the 3rd of July, and I told you today that I was only going to talk to you three days a week, but I was sitting upstairs and I got lonesome. Besides, you have – something new has been added. Now, you go ahead and add things, you know.

You're always adding things to processing I see somebody was doing a Goals Assessment on some pc, somewhere along the line, is – was something on, “What success have you had? Thank you. What success have you had?

Thank you. Oh, that was too bad. What success have you had?

Thank you.” you know? Weird. So anyhow, if you want to add things, well, I might as well be able to add things, too, and there is a place for another routine.

Actually, there are places for many other routines, and it'll probably go up like the CCHs did, you know? Get all complicated, and then be cut back to simplicity. This is Routine 1A is what I'm talking about.

And I'll call to your attention that we did not change, differentiate or invalidate Routines 1, 2 and 3. They're pretty good as far as I'm concerned. They've stood the tests – all the crisscross tests of time.

But there is a case that should be run on CCHs that can't be run on CCHs. There is such a case. Now, let's look this over.

There are three things which can hold up cases: present time problem, a big withhold or an ARC break. ARC breaks normally stem from withholds. There is a process on ARC breaks, which is “Recall an ARC break.” It is not an unpowerful process.

It is quite a process. If not flat, it becomes quite a process. That's just that one process.

It's just one repetitive command. “Recall an ARC break.” That exists. And if ARC breaks are taken separately or under the heading of overts and withholds – to which they're intimately connected – it gives you either two or three things that could be wrong with a case that isn't progressing, you see? It could be present time problem, withholds and ARC breaks.

Or it could be present time problem and O/W. You see? They both amount, more or less, to the same thing.

ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 2  So you'd say there are fundamentally two things, then, which are productive of three things. All of which mean case deterioration or no progress. The two things, of course, are problems and withholds.

And these are productive of problems, withholds and ARC breaks, you see? But by running just the two of them, you can cure three, ordinarily. The person who ARC breaks badly, and so forth, is normally staggering along under lots of withholds and a lot of unkind thoughts and that sort of thing.

ARC breaks should come under the heading of O/W, in any event, because that's the way you cure an ARC break with the pc. The pc is ARC breaky, you run O/W and that's it. But there is nothing, via'd, that will cure a withhold except getting rid of the withhold.

And there is nothing that cures a problem but getting rid of problem. Do you see that? You're looking a little bit blankly at it.

I wonder why? Because this is terribly, terribly, basically simple. If a case isn't progressing in an HGC, you immediately assume that the case is either being audited on a PTP or the case is being audited with a tremendous withhold.

See, these two things is what you immediately assume and that's what you should assume. So how about the CCHs walking uphill against tremendous present time problems? There's no way to get rid of the present time problems, if you're running the CCHs, because there are no rudiments; and your rudiments processes probably wouldn't work on this pc anyway, quite interestingly.

They don't work very well. So this leaves us room for Routine 1A. Now, Routine 1A would take care of just these two factors: the problem and the withhold.

Just these two factors would be cared for. That would be all. you wouldn't do anything else, then, but run a Problems Process and a Security Check. Problems Processes and Security Checks, and Problems Processes and Security Check.

You got the idea? Well, the only reason 1A could come to fruition so suddenly is that I had a nice blue flash. It was about from here to that oak tree down in the middle of there, and it turned the air a little bit ozonish for just a few minutes; and suddenly realized that all this work that has been done on problems – which began in earnest about 55 and saw the light of day in 56, and it's been heavily stressed ever since – had not been simplified to its lowest level of sim- plification.

And that lowest level of simplification is the process “Recall a problem.” It runs all legs of the bracket. It'll run thirty-two legs of the bracket if you let it, see? It doesn't say whose problem you're supposed to recall.

Of course, the person usually recalls their own problems for a while, and then they realize that they're a problem to somebody else, and so forth. And this gets this thing of problems. Something – you do something about problems.

Not necessarily a fast process. ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 3  But there are several things that I should tell you about problems in order to understand the handling of this particular thing. And I finally have found out what it is that makes a problem so deadly in processing.

Well, a problem is postulate-counter-postulate. A problem is ordinarily two ideas counter-opposed. It's an indecisional proposition.

One cannot decide, because there are two things one could decide and when these things become even faintly in balance, one of course gets his attention on two data. This, of course, is almost impossible as a situation. So one doesn't see the amount of confusion on it.

And the confusion tends to ball up and pile up, you see? And the confusion starts mounting around each one of these data. And you get two separate zones of confusion and the stable data.

I'll give you an idea: Mary says, “Let us go to the movies.” And John says, “Let us play checkers.” Now, if these two things are of equal magnitude as to what we should do, we cannot look at the idea of movies and we cannot look at the idea of checkers. Because, you see, there's no deciding between these two things. Then, of course, movies start to ball up as a confusion.

You see, because we're going to go to the movies, but we're not going to do it, do you know? We're going to do it, but we're not going to do it. That's just an insane situation, you see?

Now, we're going to play checkers, but we're not going to play checkers. So we get two of these confusion and the stable datum. There are two of them there, not one.

See, there isn't just the confusion and the stable datum, which is the ordinary spin that a person gets into and gets out of. There's two of them. And you mustn't look at either postulate and you don't look at either confusion.

So nothing gets as-ised. So a problem tends to persist and the common denominator of a problem is persistence. Of all things that endure, a problem is the enduringest.

Problems endure longer. So people become impatient with problems and they solve them. Now, a problem that is solved is a problem that is not-ised, not a problem which is as-ised, in the ordinary solution.

Now, people go along solving problems all the time. Now, the solution of a problem, at the finest reduotio ad absurdum, is of course, an overt against a problem. See?

Problems can't just be problems; they have to be solved. And so much is so that, everything there is in this universe is a cure for something else, which is to say a solution to some other problem. And this is a basic factor in the persistence of the universe.

This isn't the only reason the universe persists. Mechanically, there is another reason. But as far as thinkingness is concerned, we get the oddity that everything is a cure for  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 4  everything else and that all cures deteriorate and in their turn, become the new problem.

All cures become the new problems. Now, Jan and Dick, one time when I was discussing this in a lecture, they went home and figured out what time and space and matter and energy and so forth, were in time – in terms of cures. And they got it pretty good.

I had a big rack of cures of various things, in the lower order. So they pushed it over into the sixth dynamic to see what they were cures for and sure enough, they figured out that time was a cure for space and . . . You get the idea.

And energy was a cure for time. Everything was a cure for that. I've never investigated this very thoroughly but it was quite interesting.

Just the concept that these very elements with which we deal were cures for other things. But the basic thing is that nearly everything is a cure for something else. All right.

Let's look this over then. If that's the case, let's take a good notion here as to what this is all about and we find that alcohol, just about a century and a half ago, was curing things. It was curing things.

There is no doubt about it. I'll tell you that a naval vessel, like the USS Constitution, wouldn't carry three-quarters of its stores in potable beverages, unless it was good for something. And somebody would get tired, you see?

And they'd take a drink and they'd feel better – and life at sea was pretty miserable in those days – and they'd get cold and wet, or have a cold coming on or something, and they would take a drink and that would cure it. It really would cure it, you see? It was smooth.

It really did work. And nowadays, you take a drink and you get tired; and we have a disease called alcoholism. See, it itself is a disease.

Now, bacteria itself that causes disease at one time or another cured something and you can figure out most diseases on the basis of what they cured, which is quite amazing to figure out. Well, you take an organization that is hammer and tongs on the subject of creativeness. The Roman Catholic Church is – no propaganda in this at all – it's just the fact that they do really have the hatchet out on the second dynamic, you know?

I mean, they're real frothy on this subject. They don't think any creation ought to be done that can possibly be prevented. You realize that from their literature.

And they actively oppose any material being segregated which in any way, shape or form informs about cures or anises or has anything to do with the eradication of venereal disease. Because they think it's a good thing. And VD programs in New York City in the recent decade or so ran into the heavy, heavy, heavy weather of anti, well, Catholic propaganda.

They were just hot on this. They  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 5  wouldn't let anything be shown to educate people into VD. Educate them as to what it was or how to take care of it or anything else.

They spent enormous sums of money. I see you're looking very blank about it. But this – I guess I'm telling you something that's news to you.

This is not news to anybody in the medical profession. They, as a matter of fact, are quite hot on the subject. That somebody would prevent the public from knowing actively how to take care of themselves on the subject of VD, of course, condemns the rest of the population to contagion – unwitting contagion and so forth.

It's just somebody is idiotically explaining how cancer is all right, you know? It's okay, you know? It's a good cure.

Well of course, VD is a cure for sex. That's all it is. Actually, there's terrifically heavy incidence of VD amongst military personnel.

Why? Well, I don't know. For some reason or other people get into armies and navies and so forth and they don't run into any women.

I think it's very unenterprising of them; never had the trouble myself But they do. They get into camps and things like this, and there are no women, you see? And they get on board ships and they're gone for some time at sea, and there's no women.

I don't know who perpetuates this weird idea. I know I wrote the Navy Department in 1942 and said we could use seven or eight girls on board. They didn't . . .

Actually, it would have been a good thing – having nothing to do with the second dynamic – because we couldn't get any sailors to man the guns, because we had to do all the cooking and yeoman work and so forth with fighting men, you see? But I got interested in this one day, because we had innumerous – numerous cases of VD – a very unlovely subject. And of course, these cases would sort of wind up on my docket as something I had to do something about.

And when you're working in expeditions or corvettes, or something like this, you seldom have a doctor. Or the doctor is dead drunk or something. You sail out of a port and you've got seven out of a crew of a hundred men totally incapacitated.

That can be very serious when you're already shorthanded, you see? VD. So of course, you break out the knockout drops and the sulfathiazole and the penicillin and so on and you let them have it.

Well, what was very interesting to me, a little Jewish boy – he was a terrific, terrific, terrific yeoman. He was marvelous. And he must have been all at about eighteen, something like this.

He was quite a little guy. Same was Hymie. And Hymie came down with a roaring case of VD out on the Pacific coast.

That's very interesting because all Hymie had to do was think of a girl, you see, and he'd practically go up through the funnel. ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 6  And we went out to rescue a careless pilot, who had mistaken the middle of the Pacific for his landing field and Hymie was hauled off the ship by the local medic. And Hymie, in tears, came by as they were dragging him away – literally dragging him away, you see – because here was his ship going to sea.

My God, you know, and here he was being hauled over on the dock. And he says to me, he says, “But Captain,” he says, “I have never had anything to do with a woman, never in my whole life. How could I have venereal disease?” And they dragged him over on the dock.

There was – doctors are a suspicious lot. And we came back, having not found the aircraft. The army – I think they forgot to despatch it or something and everybody is educated by the movies, you know, into believing, you know that an aircraft goes up, and if it's unreported for fifteen and a half seconds that there are rescue squadrons all over the place, you know; and people talking efficiently on phones, and the Coast Guard talking to this and merchant ships at sea being alerted in all directions, you know.

And you have very nice music backgrounding all this up, you know, and so forth. And that isn't the way it's done at all. All of a sudden, you'll hear a plaintive cry, someplace or another, and it sounds like a very faint Mayday and somebody's going down somewhere.

And you take a radio fix on him and you instantly radio a base someplace, the nearest aircraft base. And you say, “Is one of your planes missing?” And they say, “Well, we don't know.” “Oh, you don't know?” “Well, no. We don't count planes taking off from here. you think we're crazy or something” And, “Well, is one of your aircraft missing?” “Well, uh . . . oh, I don't know.

We'll find out in the next few days. Do you have to know?” And you say, “Well, there's somebody out here yelling Mayday.” And, “Oh? Probably isn't from our base.” That's an actual experience.

I never did find any aircraft base that knew where any of its aircraft were, so that was pretty good. It's all propaganda, I'm afraid. I don't suppose they abandon all of them.

I suppose occasionally, when the press boys are around, they suddenly send out somebody to crash and get rescued or something. Here we had . . . That's a cynical attitude, but they're cynical people.

I'm just Q-and- Aing with it. ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 7  So I pulled in alongside of the dock, and we're all disgusted, and there's nothing has happened. And we're all beat up and thoroughly dusted by the cruel, cruel sea.

And we pull up alongside the same dock, and there's Hymie, see? And he's standing there with his kit bag, you know and he's looking very happy and very cheerful. And he comes aboard and he says to me, he says, “Skipper,” he says, “Heck, I didn't have it.

I didn't have it. They told me it was something called a nonspecific.” I talked to the medicos about this and they said, “Oh, yes, we get lots of those, lots of those.” He said, “There's no bacteria present. There's nothing present and so forth.

It's just a tremendous discharge.” He says, “A lot of boys get very, very worried about this sort of thing.” I got to thinking about it later. I was going over this subject, here, a few years ago and it occurred to me that, obviously, venereal disease stops sex. So if sex is stopped, you get venereal disease.

Got the idea? See, no sex equals venereal disease. Because venereal disease equals no sex.

And it goes both ways and you only get this high incidence of VD amongst very sex- starved people; and you get these nonspecific venereal diseases, you see, amongst groups of people who haven't anything to do with sex at all. Quite interesting, huh? Of course, prostitution, and so forth, is about as close as you can get to no sex. you just ask men around London how close you can get to no sex at all, and they tell you prostitution.

I actually conducted a campaign on this some time ago. That's also sort of a no-sex proposition, you see. So this combines up in various ways, and we've got no sex, and we get over here a no- sex condition.

So that's probably what VD is anyhow, because it very often doesn't even exist as bacteria. You got the idea? It's got all the symptoms, and somebody could be worried to death, but it isn't.

Well, there's a case of cures, suddenly emerging and arising, you see? Now, sex is a cure for no bodies. See?

That's what sex is a cure for. And then, if you get no bodies, of course, why, you get a cure for sex. Get how weirdly and tortuously and involvedly all of this works out?

Get the idea? I mean, the cure becomes the cause becomes the cure becomes the cause. You know, the illness becomes the cure becomes the illness becomes the cure.

You see how all this is? Now, you haven't got a pc, whose ideas about horses sleeping in beds, who hasn't cured something with that idea. Quite factual.

Every aberration he's got was a cure for something Let's take his motionlessness. This is why withholds work so well. His motionlessness is a cure for having killed so many people.

See, that's a cure. If he doesn't move, he won't kill  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 8  anybody. All right, so you pick up the withholds on killing, and all of a sudden he can move again.

See, because he isn't under this tremendous compulsion. But what was killing? Killing was a cure for something.

Get the idea? Killing was a cure for hating people. If there weren't any people around, of course you didn't have to hate.

Well, what was hate? Well, that was a cure for associating with people to some way or another. Or that was to keep one from associating with people because one was liable to damage people.

So we've come back to the same cure. See? Hating people was a cure for liable to damage people.

And then, of course, damaging people was a cure for people being people. And then, motionlessness was a cure for damaging people. You see how this works out on the withhold line?

It's all this nonsense of one thing goes to another goes to another goes to another. And guys will get some mighty weird, wild and wonderful ideas on what they're liable to do and how they should restrain it, or what's liable to happen and how they should solve it. And as long as you see perfectly logical (to us) solutions, why, you think this is all right.

It's only when you see these oddball solutions, you see, that you say, “Well, what is that a cure for?” And you don't understand it's a cure for anything and of course it isn't. So therefore, you say it's an aberration. You might say an aberration is a cure that you don't understand or an aberration is a cure that doesn't cure anything or aberration is a cure that cures some craziness.

Now, you get all of this weird concatenation of illness is the cure, and the cure becomes the illness, and all these things get entwined and so on, and all these things go this way so irrationally because basically they are problems. It all goes back to the confusion and the stable datum, one kind or another. Now, you get two confusions and two stable data and these are counter-opposed and you don't dare do one, and you don't dare do the other one; and therefore, you don't confront one, you don't confront the other one. you get an endurance because it is never as-ised.

And the endurance goes along the line on and on and on and on and on. Why? Because you never as-is the thing; it is always solved.

You see? You do something else. So these pcs, for instance, that have a via plus a via plus a via plus a via plus a via to run an auditing command inherit it simply on this basis of, they run into a problem, you see, and then they'll go up through the solutions, through a very serie – series of vias, and the basic thing wrong with them is the problem.

That's basic. They've got a problem of some kind or another. And this problem they have never frontally attacked.

They have never looked at it as a problem; and not looking at it as a problem of course, gets them into some interesting states. ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 9  Now, when you say a problem of comparable magnitude, you've put the via of cure the problem – you've taken it off of automatic, you see? So you're getting the person to covertly look at the problem, look at the problem, look at the problem and you've seen it be quite effective.

And all of a sudden the problem disappears. Well, why? Because you've made him look at the problem, look at the problem, look at the problem.

But basically, problems have terrific endurance. And they just run on the track forever. So therefore, certain conditions, which are designed to cure other conditions . . .

A snake's venom is the thing which causes the snake to be antipathetic and it is a cure for the antipathetic character of people toward a snake. You see, you don't like snakes because they have venom. Well, they have venom, you see, because they – people don't like them. you get how idiotic?

This is always this idiotic – it all comes down to some idiocy, and we get the basic thing of Q-and-A is simply that the question's answer is always the question. The answer to a question is the question. You see?

You say to me, “Well, why don't you stand a pc on his head in the corner in order to process him?” and of course, the answer to it is, “Why don't you stand a pc on his head in the corner to process him?” See, it's of course the perfect duplication. See? That is the answer to that question.

You got the idea? That's the idiot's delight. That's the duplication.

But of course, that question is not prompted by that question. It is prompted by some other confusion. So by simply replying to it, “Why don't you stand the pc on his head in the corner to process him?” and you say back, “Why don't you stand a pc on his head in the corner to process him?” This is very unsatisfactory.

People don't like to have this happen to them. Well, that's because they're trying to solve a basic confusion they have. But the confusion will be something very fundamental about something very fundamental.

There's a fundamental datum about Scientology or something awry they have a confusion on someplace else. And you haven't reached that. And one of the ways of teaching – a very skilled method of teaching – is to try to arrive at where this guy is wound up.

Don't give him an answer to why you – on a silly question like, “Why don't you stand pcs on their head in a corner to process them?” Don't give them – try to solve the thing for them. Just try to find out how – where he – where he got that lineup that would wind up with this, you see, as the satisfactory solution. And you'll find out he's got some basic and fundamental confusion on Axioms 1 to 55.

See? There's something going wrong here whenever you hear of one of these things and he's trying to cure a confusion and then when you answer him or give him a sensible solution, you  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 10  very often are trying to cure his confusion. But as long as you try to cure confusions, the confusions continue.

That's why man drops back to threat of duress and punishment all the time. He is despaired of correcting this criminal's juvenile lifetime as the son of a millionaire or something, you see? His terrible period of childhood is something that's totally beyond anybody's reach and of course he got very fundamental confusions about human relationships in that childhood.

Oh, everybody recognizes that these days, but hardly anybody tries to do anything about that. Instead of that, they arrest the guy and put him in jail. Boy, that's sure a stable datum, isn't it?

That is motionless, enclosed, it's a location that isn't going to change and that is a cure for what? A bunch of confusions about people. Well, there are now no people there hardly at all. you can't be confused about people because there aren't any people there.

Well, that seems to me to be terribly, terribly drastic. In other words, that's a heavy action, which is borne out of despair and it is only faintly a cure for criminality, because you find most criminals that are confirmed criminals or real bad criminals have been to jail several times. In jail they get educated into hating people, you see.

It's like the snake's venom. They get the idea people don't like them. So therefore it's perfectly all right for them to bite people, you see?

And you've just moved them further and further out by “curing” this broad thing called criminality and I mean, advisedly, this offbeat idea of “curing” criminality. No, you'd have to get rid of somebody's basic confusions about life before he would cease to be criminal. All right.

Clarifications of one's own background knock out all of these confusions and there is a way of making a fundamental attack upon this. This is a frontal attack. These confusions very often stem from withholds.

So you give something like a Joburg Security Check and you get the withholds off the case. All right. You get the withholds off.

In the process of getting the withholds off, have you ever noticed the pc appears confused at times? You know? Kind of spinny and confused and so forth?

Well, actually, what you're doing is arising some of these fundamental confusions. He wonders, “Why the devil did I do that?” He's trying to find the problem that he solved with it. Well, let's take a further look at this and we'll see, then, that the most fundamental confusion there could be would be two counter-opposed data, each surrounded by a confusion, and nobody could put his mind on either one of these two data and nobody could put his mind on either of these two confusions.

Of course, those confusions would tend to persist all the more, wouldn't they? Because that's what you call a multiple confusion. ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 11  :so a problem IS a multiple contusions It s more than one contusion. it- you don't believe that, examine the anatomy of a problem someday.

Your pc has a problem, just find the two confusions. And you'll find out there are two confusions – not one confusion; there are two – and there are two solutions or two ideas involved in this, each one with its own confusion. It's an encysted – encysted – confusion.

Because there's a solution to it here, and there's a solution to it here. But of course you can't do solution A and do solution B. and you can't do solution B and do solution A, you see? And each one has its own confusion, so you just try to back off from this.

And of course you can't back off from anything, actually. So as a result, it follows you. And you get this oddity of a problem moving in on somebody every time you get him to solve it and moving out on him every time you get him to look at it. you see, he's trying to escape an idea, and the idea is with him and the faster you try to back off of one of your ideas . . .

You know? Well, experimentally, get an idea that all lions are dangerous. Now, consider that as a very dangerous idea; consider you're a lion tamer or something.

They like to be called lion trainers, I just remembered. And, “Consider that all lions are dangerous” would be a very dangerous idea for a lion trainer to have, see? So, you shouldn't get that idea, should you?

That would put an end, rather, to the aplomb with which you go in to the arena. So get the idea of getting the idea “All lions are dangerous.” Now do this, right now. Get the idea “All lions are dangerous.” Now, decide that is a dangerous idea and decide you're going to back off from it.

Don't forget it or anything. Just try to back off from that idea of “All lions are dangerous.” Does an odd thing, doesn't it? Has a tendency to collapse.

Trying to escape your own ideas, you know, is very, very interesting. It's like trying to play checkers on your own coattail. And that is the mechanism on which problems move in on one, is one gets an idea he shouldn't have the idea, so he moves off from the idea.

But of course the idea is his idea and where is there to go? Well, one thing one can't hide from is his own ideas, of course. You get a sort of an idea of withholding though, as you try to back off from one of your own ideas because you're trying to get away from it, you see?

So as you move back from these things, of course, they follow you in. And therefore, you ask a pc – he tells you he has a problem. You say, “Where is it?”  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 12  He'll very mysteriously say, quite ordinarily, that it's out there about ten feet, see, or five feet, or it's right here in his head.

And ask him to get a problem of comparable magnitude to it or just think of a problem of comparable magnitude to it, and then say, “Where is it now?” And he'll say, “Well, it's out there twenty feet,” see? And, “Think of a problem of comparable magnitude.” Moves out there forty feet, fifty feet, sixty feet – as long as you run that one. Now you say, “Solve it, son.

Thank you. Solve it. Thank you.

Solve it. Chink of a solution to it. Thank you.

Where is the problem now?” “It's right here.” You say, “All right. Think of another solution to it. Where is it now?” He says, “It's right in the middle of my head.” And you say, “Okay.

All right. Now, think of a problem of comparable magnitude to it. Good.

Think of a problem of comparable magnitude to it. Good. Think of a problem of comparable magnitude to it.

Good. Think of a problem of comp – . Where is it now?” “It's out there about thirty feet.” Well, you keep that up and of course you say, “Well, where is it now?” “Well, it's gone over the horizon and disappeared.” And you can actually get him to confront this sort of a problem long enough that this happens.

Then you say, “All right. Get an idea that solves that problem. Get an idea that solves that problem.

Get an idea that solves that problem. Where is the problem now?” He says, “No place.” In other words, you haven't brought it back in. Well, why haven't you brought it back in?

Because in the “Think of a problem of comparable magnitude,” you have actually got him to as-is it. The confusions of it disappeared. Got the idea?

You got him on a via and so on. So he did confront it, on a via, and then he confronted it directly. And of course as soon as he did that, it disappeared.

So you can't say endlessly to somebody – . He tells you he has an awful problem with his wife, you see, or something like that and you say, “Where is the problem?” This would sound at first statement like it's an idiotic question. Where is it?

Well, she is home and he's here, so obviously, it is either home or here but he never answers that. you don't get that answer. He says, “It's right there.” And you say, “Well, where's right there?”  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 13  He says, “Well, it's fifteen feet out in front of me,” or something like this. That is his response, in actuality, if he's going to locate it for you and providing he's high enough up the line that he can see ridges.

A lot of people are below being able to see ridges. They only see lines. Some people have lines going all over the room.

Darnedest concatenation you ever saw. The old Reality Scale, way back – 17th ACC. Anyhow.

So you can't endlessly say, “All right. This problem with your wife. All right.

Think of a solution to the problem. Think of a solution to the problem. Think of a solution to the problem.

Think of a solution to the problem,” have it arrive right here in his head, and then say, “Think of a problem of comparable magnitude. Thank you. Think of a problem of comparable magnitude.

Thank you,” and have it move out; and then say, “Think of a solution to that problem. Think of a solution to that problem. Think of a solution to that problem,” have it move in; and then say, “Think of a problem of comparable magnitude.

Think of a problem of comparable magnitude. Think – .” What problem? This actually disposes of the confusion.

It doesn't just endlessly yo-yo and last forever. You see that? But problems have endurance.

So you could say, on a thought level, that thought mass is basically problems. If thought mass is enduring, then it is basically composed of problems. If ridges are enduring, then they must be problems.

Why would a problem endure? Unless the thing – the problem is the two confusions and the two stable data, counter-opposed. And one doesn't look at either of them or as-is either of them, so you get an endurance of energy masses in the mind.

Some pc complains to you that ridges are about to knock her head off or some pc says to you that they have a terrible pressure in their chest; or some pc coughs all the time. What's this? This must be a persistent mental mass, right?

And mental mass is mass. There is no doubt about that. It has weight.

Very tiny, but it has weight. It actually has size and shape and so forth. All right.

This person tells you they have a persistent difficulty with their leg. Now, that isn't quite a mental mass because it's materialized in the physical universe and all of these conditions that I have just enumerated all add up to the fact that the person has problems. Now, if you get this going enough, the person will be a problem, and of course, inevitably, will dramatize being a problem.

And quite ordinarily, they say problems are unsolvable or these problems are much too much for them. So of course, the problem that they're sitting in is going to be much too much for you too. Everybody sees to that.

Got the idea? So you start – you keep worrying about this pc, because this pc is a problem and then you keep trying to solve this problem. Then one day you got facsimiles of the pc.

Do you see how that would work? ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 14  But the pc will actually get to a point where they dramatize being a problem. Now, if you ask around and ask people if the case has made any progress, the people that say no – even when their profile is changed – of course are doing what?

They're simply dramatizing being a problem. Well, what's wrong with them? Problems are persistent.

They have terrific endurance and this person is sitting right in the middle of a problem, which is from Lord knows where, when or how or what, you see? But there it is and they've been so overwhelmed by this problem that when they're asked about problems, they are the problem. So they present themselves to you as a problem.

And when somebody says he has no gain, he has said the same thing to you as, is “I'm a problem to you. Solve me.” Now of course, your chances of solving it, on any oblique line, are quite poor. why are they poor? Well, because problems are the one thing that have the heaviest endurance.

They're the most enduring things there are. Because they're postulate-counter-postulate, each one with a separate confusion. So one can make neither head nor tail out of a problem because he can't put his mind on confusion A without getting hit by confusion B.

And he can't try to as-is or consider answer or stable datum B without having answer A strike him as the best thing, you see? So he tries to put his attention on one, he gets the other one. He tries to put his attention on the other one, he gets the one and he finally says, “I will back off from this.” So he adds a curtain across this whole proposition called no confront.

Pcs which have consistently rising needles – you know, anything you ask them, why, the needle starts rising. At the drop of the hat, the needle starts rising, you got the idea? And it rises and rises and rises and rises and rises.

It's no good for reading because you can't tell what they're not confronting. But I can tell you what they're not confronting now. I didn't know a few weeks that I could, you know, say it, just bang! that would communicate well.

But they're not confronting a problem. So that's what a rising needle is all about. They're not confronting something, that's for sure.

Well, we could never say what they weren't confronting. But we can say it in a generality, now: They're not confronting a problem. And after you audit this person for a while, this person will find out that this person has problems.

Only they didn't know they had these problems, see? But anytime you ticked anything that had anything to do with his problems you, of course, put them on a no confront and you'd get some oddity like this: You'd be talking to the pc and you'd say, “Well, now, how's tricks and how's it going? And has anything happened between this last session I gave you and this one now?”  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 15  And the pc will say, “No.” And all of a sudden the needle starts rising like a startled gazelle.

And the tone arm starts going up. And you say, “Well, what is this?” and “Something did happen?” And they say, “Oh, no, no. Nothing happened.” And you check it down and you're finally forced to do something you really shouldn't do, but you can't take somebody who has got a very, wildly different tone arm read – between sessions this was acquired – and go on and process him if you expect to get anyplace, because something has happened!

But they will quite normally – it's like fishing for fish in a sea where there are none! It's like these resorts that get you down there that promise to sell you bait and boats, and you're going to catch all the fish in the world and the only thing you get is a sunburn, you know? You just – apparently just can't find what this is, you know, for a long time.

It's like drilling for oil in barren rock. Then all of a sudden, “Well, there's nothing happened, except I had an automobile accident last night. That's all.

I mean, couldn't possibly be anything. Oh yes, it was. Yes, as a matter of fact, I was guilty.

As a matter of fact, I – I just remembered, I have the ticket from the police in my pocket now. I'm supposed to appear as a summons and lose my license at two o'clock.” You know? I mean, it could get this nutty.

But factually, you see, it was a problem, and they backed off and they didn't confront it. And then, now, they can't tell you about it. why can't they tell you about it? Because they can't confront it, that's why.

But I can tell you the common denominator of all no confronts is problem. No confront? Problem.

Persistence? Problem. All these things add up.

Now, the CCHs can cut and saw through this remarkably well, considering. But this is where you get your slow gain. This is your slow-gain case.

This is the case that doesn't take off like a startled gazelle and run to Clear in a hurry. This case is mired in problems and this is probably the answer to slow clearing. This is why slow clearing occurs.

Okay? Now, you need the answer to that. why is slow goals? Why does it take forever to get somebody's goals?

Well, he's sitting in a problem. Now, you'll notice that a case that is slow in gain is heavy on comm lag. Or if they are talking, aren't talking quite on the line of what we should be talking about.

Got the idea? Either the confusion is withheld or inverted. In other words, the communication is withheld or inverted.

The comm lag stems from the no confront. And then this can get so bad that they don't even confront what you're asking  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 16  them but disassociate slightly and talk about something else every time you ask them a question. You got that?

In other words, you can back off from a problem to such a degree that there's no place to go. And then you have to go on a complete disassociated via because everything is associated with this problem. Well, now, what caused the pc to react, dumbly?

The pc sat down. They were apparently okay. The tone arm wasn't too high and you said to them, “Has anything happened since the last session?” And of course this clicked it.

But they went on a no confront, so they can't tell you. It clicked and put them on a no confront. They were all right, right up to the point when you asked them if they had a problem and this is the phenomenon that you've run into consistently, of somebody being very upset with you because you asked them if they have a problem.

You've asked them to confront something they can't confront. And they re liable to get a tall, so they Know they cant run it, because they know they can't do anything about a problem, don't you see? And they'd rather get on with the auditing.

Haven't you ever noticed this one? Well, this is their confession, when they have this type of reaction to a problem, that they're sitting in the middle of some God-awful problems, none of which they're confronting. See?

Well, you might say the clue to slow gain or odd behavior in a pc is a problem; and not one, but a multiple series of problems which compose themselves into a ridged bank. So you get your invisible field, your black field, your field with small rockets. And then, of course, on an inverted basis, a field with little trains that run by and give you the dope, see?

This is a way to communicate without looking at anything. You put them all on little toy trains, see? And this explains these various field mechanisms.

And I've never given you a good explanation for them before. I couldn't put it well. But there it is.

It's basically a problem. They start to confront; they get no confront That's because it's an indecisional situation, wholly indecisional. Now, all this is a prelude to a very, very simple process.

It is so idiotically simple that you will begin to wonder when it half-kills your pc. Because it will. It'll turn on somatics that are fabulous.

It'll turn on aches and pains and sore throats and bad ears that you never heard of before, you know? But every one of these things is what's keeping the pc from going up the line. So you could make a direct, frontal attack on the no-change case, not with change but with problems.

I've known for years that that stuck profile was the fact that the pc had a problem while he was being audited, see? ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 17  Well now, let's reduce this to a point where the pc is a pc where all problems are life and life is a problem. That they're being audited is a problem.

That they're there is a problem. That they are alive is a problem. That they're going to die is a problem.

That they have a car is a problem. That they don't have a car is a problem. Do you see?

It's all a problem now and no apparent solution to anything. And reactively, it becomes very dangerous to them to solve anything; and they don't solve anything. They have an awful time, terrible time.

Problems. Sniper on the right, sniper on the left. If you duck to the left side of the tree, you get hit by one sniper, if you duck to the right side of the tree, you get hit by the other sniper.

Well, what you going to do? If you do either one, you're wrong. So you take up religion.

See? It's just, thud! Just like that, you know?

You'll find that it is in the fields of stress and duress of life where religious cults make their finest harvest. Here's skid-row George, you know, stumbling down and he knows if he doesn't drink wood alcohol that he's going to get the DTs; and that's terrible, see, because he'll start coming out of it. And if he does, it'll kill him and it's that much further to come out of it, see?

What's his answer? Salvation Army standing there on the corner; he all of a sudden helps them beat the drum. He's arrived at exactly nowhere.

See? He's gone into a think. He's gone out of a confront into a figure, see?

And you'll find – you'll find afterwards, the thing to do is to beat the drum, you know? And you say, “Didn't you used to be an alcoholic?” Has nothing to do with what the case is. He won't say anything about his life as an alcoholic.

It'll cut in on some kind of a level, “. . . and then I took up religion, and I was no longer a liability to myself or others.” Got the idea? He'll hang in the middle. Just ask him sometime.

You can hang him right in the middle. If he doesn't say, “Yes” – except as it sort of comes out as propaganda – “Yes, I was an alcoholic. I remember well, lying around in a barroom, and there was this bartender there.

And he gave me a job sweeping out. And I was lying there on the barroom floor and he picked up the bar broom and he swept me out instead. And I was lying there in the gutter in the rain, and this cop came by and took me over to the hospital and I had a devil of a time in the hospital.

I had DTs and everything else.” No, none of – the story never goes that far, because there's not that much confront in the man. It will go something like this: “And the bartender picked up the broom.” He'll get that far. “And I realized, then, I was on the wrong course and I've been beating the drum ever since.” See, he does a depart. He never finishes the engram.

ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 18  Only, next time that you ask him about when he took up religion, or you say to him something on the order of having been an alcoholic, he tells you an entirely different tale about the moment he decided. He was up this mast, in a ninety-mile-an-hour gale, and he realized there wasn't much to life and that it was all very perilous and all there was, was really God, see? And it was at that moment that he suddenly did.

And the next time you ask him about anything about his being an alcoholic, he'll give you another story which is entirely different; and of course, all of these things are fictitious nonconfronts of one character or another. Because he cannot confront the problem of having been an alcoholic. Because he's now solved it.

Which is a matter of he's sitting right in the middle of being an alcoholic, being the solution to being an alcoholic, see? That's why Alcoholics Anonymous do what they do. I always thought this was a pretty good organization.

One of their members convinced me otherwise, down in South Africa. He told me what their texts were all about. Their first tenet is “There is no cure for drunkenness.

There's absolutely no cure for alcoholism. One must make up his mind to it.” I didn't believe the guy, but since that time I've read some of their literature. They sell a person absolutely, hypnotically, hundred percent, with a sledgehammer on the idea that he can never be anything but an alcoholic.

That is his first line. What he must learn to do is to overcome it in some fashion or another. Realizing all the time that he is an alcoholic.

I mean, you talk about finding a guy in the mud and then using his head for a stepping stone, that's it. It's not so good. See, I thought they were doing something about alcoholism.

No, they're not. They're saying nothing can be done about alcoholism. That's why they never cooperate with us.

I never understood why before, but they never do. It's always a little token cooperation, and then they find out that we say that you can do something about alcoholism and they're off us like a shot. That's because they've got an opposed datum, is there's nothing you can do about alcoholism.

All right. Alcoholism is a problem. And to them it is a problem of tremendous endurance and enormous magnitude; and they're saying you can't confront any part of it.

See? So therefore you've got to walk around being a solution to it. So join Alcoholics Anonymous.

A nice mechanism, isn't it? Man is evil. He is a terrible problem.

There's nothing you can do about it. Become a monk.” see this? These are the concatenative thoughts that all wind up in the same order.

Now, you're in there; somebody's come into Scientology saying, “Well, there's nothing you can do about life. I'll sit here and not confront anything,” and their case doesn't make any  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 19  gain. They aren't many.

Don't think you're one of them. Because they're only people who get no case gains to amount to anything. Got the idea?

Then their withholds and their problems... Their problems actually come about through their withholds, and then their withholds come about through their problems, you see? And then the more they withhold, the more problems they've got.

And then the more problems they've got, the more they withhold. You see? And the less confront there is in them.

So they get foggier and foggier and mistier and mistier about the whole thing. And what are they doing? They're flinching from themselves.

They're there. Where else is there to go? There isn't anyplace else to go.

The atomic bomb, you say there's no place to hide. That's a lie. I know of a lot of satellites, asteroids, the moon, various planets, even Jupiter – if you Like to swim in seas of liquefied air.

These are places to go and I don't mean getting out on the broomstick that they send off at Cape Canaveral. I – I'm talking about the fact, so, they knock you off, you go someplace. Or before the atomic bombing comes, why, you die of something and go to Jupiter or something, you know?

What's the difference? There is someplace to go. But there is one thing that you never can get away from, and that of course is yourself Because you're there and as long as you're there, you're there.

And as soon as you start getting away from yourself, of course you try to pretend you are not where you are and you get some kind of a dispersed locational situation. You get a “buttered all over the universe.” See? The guy is everywhere at the same time, you see?

He permeates everything without being anywhere. Well, he's just somebody who's trying to escape himself Why? Because he himself has problems and these problems all carry, as a common denominator, no confront.

So just as you get the idea that lion taming is dangerous – thinking of yourself as a lion tamer – try to back up from the idea. Of course, where are you going to go? You've put motion and action into a thought process.

And as soon as you do that, of course, the two become inextricably entangled. Only inextricably short of Scientology. All right.

These ridges and all that sort of thing that people run into and that they're having difficulties with and so forth, actually surrender on this one command. They do. But I am not telling you a lie when I say it's actually hell to run.

It is. It is rough, because it turns on some nice, horrendous somatics and from session to session, in the early stages of it, it does not move rapidly. Do you see why it does not move rapidly?

It appears to be very gluey, and the pc's liable to tell you they're getting all gummed up in the glue of it all, you know? And that it's all stacking up and it's getting worse and worse, and so on. Well, the CCHs are moving this same thing through.

ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 20  But you ask somebody to recall a problem, you've said what? You've said, “Confront something you're not confronting” so you have to be very careful to get the auditing command answered. So a secondary question very often should be interjected.

You said, “Recall a problem.” And he says, “Mm-hm.” And you say, “What problem was that?” And you'll very often catch him out. He just has a generality of life. He's just thought of a generality called life.

Yes, he's recalled a problem. It's a generality, you see? And this great generality has sort of spread all over the place and he hasn't told you a problem.

And when he says, “Well, um, yes. Well, urn – I didn't – I just uh, didn't – didn't really think of one. I thought of a . . .” And you say, “Well, I'll repeat the auditing question.

Recall a problem.” You have to make sure that he does recall a specific problem. Because on this particular process, more questions go unanswered than in any other known process. More questions can be dogged than any other one.

So you have to be quite sharp on that. What was that one? You know? “Recall a problem.” “Mm-hm!” That's great.

Yeah. Mm-hm. What does this Mm-hm mean?

It's probably agreeing with your auditing command. It isn't that he did it, till you say, “What problem was that?” And you very often get the immediate confession that it was just a generality. It didn't have anything to do with any particular problem anyplace, anywhere, at any time.

Now, a man goes through, or a girl goes through, nonconfront like this like mad. And these various ridges that are hounding them and making them cough and pushing their noses into the back of their heads and all that sort of thing, are simply problem ridges, and that's all there are. They're confusions which have centered around counter-opposed data, between which nobody could make up his mind, except to confront them.

And they haven't confronted them; they have backed up from being – “lions are dangerous.” They backed up, and of course, they – there is no place to back to. So there they are. So they begin to have the sensation, then, of being pushed or being pressed upon or being infiltrated or being entered or having terror stomachs or facial somatics or sinusitis or bad eyes or pains in the head or migraine headaches or something like this.

ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 21  And of course it feels, to them, like some exterior pressure is at operation on them. See, there's some kind of an exterior, pressing, demanding thing that is evidently being levered against them from some other quarter. Well, the other quarter, of course, is not another quarter.

They're trying to back up from where they are, you see, but every time they back up, they carry what they have with them, naturally. It's like a fellow with an armload of kindling and he keeps backing up to get away from the kindling, but he never looks at the kindling or lets go of it. And of course, he'll get the sensation after a while that something is busting his ribs.

What is it? It is very mysterious. Well, it is not very mysterious.

It is a problem. But don't think of it in terms that if you could just find the one problem of the man's life, you'd have his whole case solved. You could find the basic-basic problem that started all of his confusions on the track.

You could find various vintages of problems, which would then start a concatenation and a rip-up of problems. You could find a lot of considerations that move problems into a tough category, and so forth. But it is just this one consideration, really, that there's an unconfrontability between two counter-postulates.

It's like – it's like you belong to the Greek army and you were having a lot of fun knocking off Persians and you got exteriorized in a battle, and so on – getting your mock-up knocked off. So you picked yourself up a Persian, see? I say you picked up a Persian; you kind of marched off with the Persian hordes, you know, and you picked up somebody in Persia.

And then they all of a sudden say, “Well, those damn Greeks are coming over the line. And we – and you're conscripted. And you're part of His Majesty's Darius's cavalry or something.” And there you are, you see, and you're looking at all these Greeks.

This gets to be an interesting problem. You should be on the Greek forces, but you're not. The confusion to the Greek forces is the Persian forces, you see?

But you're in the Persian forces, and confusion to the Persian forces is the Greek forces. There's only one answer to that. Go take up a lecture circuit on the subject of peace.

Because you will land halfway in the middle of the battleground. See? You can't be a Greek and fight the Persians, and you can't be a Persian and fight the Greeks.

Unconfrontable. Both of them are wrong. Well, you run a pc who's in this situation, and you find out he was a Persian before he became a Greek.

It wasn't the other way to, see? He was a Persian before he became a Greek and then he again became a Persian; and you've got that all solved. And you say, “Well, that was the answer and that was the problem.” And then you find out, actually he was an  ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 22  Egyptian, you see, fighting the Persians and then exteriorised into the Persians.

That's how he got there. And you say, “Well, we've got that one, now. We've finally sorted that out.” And the pc will tell you he's got that all sorted now and then you find out he was a Persian before he was an Egyptian.

You see? And they keep running this way on the track. And a pc, as he runs this, actually will tend to come up with some interesting solutions.

You find him sitting there, and all of a sudden he'll have a very interesting solution. It's a solution to what? Well, he won't be quite sure, but it's an awfully interesting solution.

And he's no more than thought of it, and it becomes a terrible problem to him. “Well, it'd be awful to put that into effect,” you know? “Well, I've just decided to go to the movies,” he says. “I've just decided to go to the movies. And the finest thing I could do is go to the movies. And we're all set, and so forth.

Get your hat and coat, here we go to the movies – oh, to hell with it. I've seen the picture before. Where are you going What are you doing with your hat and coat?” See?

You say, “This guy is nuts.” No, this guy isn't nuts. This guy had a solution. He was feeling bored that evening, and so he solved being bored that evening by going to the movies.

And then, on a little, three-minute, four-minute, five-minute comm lag, why, he of course does the other flip; and solving it was dangerous, so going to the movies is a boring proposition. See, he was bored. So he solved boredom by doing something interesting.

But then the interesting thing he decided to do, all of a sudden, Qed-and-Aed and flashed back on him and he's bored with it. You get a lot of people that go out and buy a Mercedes or something, you see, and they no more than stick the keys in the ignition than they instantly are bored with the Mercedes, you see? Just do that, bang! just like that.

And they say, “I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know what's the matter with me. What is the matter?

Something fantastic is wrong. I – it's not . . .” No. They got the Mercedes because they were bored.

See? The Mercedes is a solution to boredom. Well, the Mercedes is not a solution to the boredom.

The Mercedes is a Mercedes. Look one over if you don't believe me. And that's it, you see?

But if they haven't examined this, and they don't even look at the Mercedes, and haven't even looked at the Mercedes at all, and they were bored so they bought a Mercedes; they step into the Mercedes, put the keys in the lock, and they're bored. ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 23  See, the problem is the solution, you see. And the cure becomes the – and then they don't know which they are.

And naturally, you can do fantastic things by getting them out and having them touch the Mercedes, you know? Touch the fenders and the wheel, and so forth. And they say, “What do you know, it's a Mercedes.

It isn't a solution to boredom. And then they become interested in the fact that they have a Mercedes. And you would do this by touch.

Otherwise, they will never confront the Mercedes, because they can't confront the boredom. Now you see why Touch Assists and familiarity and that sort of thing work out so easily. So you have 1A.

As I say, it's got a lot of rationale behind it and it looks very innocent, and it looks very simple, and so forth. The things you must do in it, don't overrun the thing, beyond the Security Check point. When I say hour for hour, I don't mean one hour on this process and one hour on the Security Check.

I mean if you happen to run 12Y2 hours of “Recall a Problem” or CCHs, then it looks to me like you've got to put in about 12Y2 hours on Security Checks. You got the idea? We don't care when it's done. you flatten the CCHs.

You bring them up to a flat point. And you say, “Well, we can let that rest for a little while.” Now you do a Security Check for a while. And when the person seems to be kind of wound up on the Security Check, whether it was one page or ten, you say, “Well, we can leave that alone for a while, and we'll do some CCHs.” You see, you kind of run them flat.

Well, similarly, you'd run the motion out of the tone arm on “Recall a Problem.” And the motion is momentarily flat, and so we at once move over into doing a Security Check. And the person seems to be cooled off. And the needle seems to be doing better now and life seems to be a little bit easier on the thing; go back to this problem.

Because the problems will kick withholds into views, and the withholds will kick problems into view, see? The things operate one against the other very well. And that's Routine 1A; and I advocate Routine on – 1A on people that aren't making any very rapid progress on a CCH.

The progress is rather slow on CCHs, and we say, “Well, what we're doing is trying to solve the problem with control, communication and havingness. And we probably could get there, all right, but let's make this person directly as-is some problems before we go on.” you see? You'd run Routine 1A until things looked a bit better and the pc was making changes and gains and you were getting more and better tone arm action and a looser needle.

I don't care whether that's an intensive or two intensives or what, or five hours. It doesn't matter. It's just as long as you attain some kind of a goal, looks like the pc can change better, why, you could go back to Routine 1 or you could go to Routine 2.

Okay? ROUTINE 1A – PROBLEMS 24  But Routine 1A is a culmination of many years of investigation of this particular goofy factor called a problem. And it's well worth noting that the solution to a problem is a problem.

That is the solution to the problem; and when a pc is being a problem, then you'd better get him to look at and as-is some problems. Some problems, because it isn't ever one problem. A case never has one problem.

A case does have one goal, a case does have one terminal, but a case never has one problem. So you try to run a PT problem flat, and you're going to find yourself with another problem. Haven't you ever noticed that?

And then you run that problem flat, and you'll find yourself with another problem. They can just go n this way, ad nauseam, endlessly. Now, also Routine 1A would be something you would resort to if the pc keeps coming into session with present time problems.

By the time you've run three or four – no matter what else you're doing with this pc, by the time you've run three or four sessions on the pc, and every one has got tremendous, fantastic and overwhelming present time problems and they take up an awful lot of a session – it just seems like we just have an unlimited supply of present time problems to view – you've got Routine 1A as the best, fastest method of getting this case on the road. Okay? All right.

I wish you good luck with that one. Thank you.

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