6111C22 SHSpec-83  Reading the E-meter

     It is a horrible fact that the request for the extraordinary solution if
prompted always by the gross auditing error.  Your sense of propriety may be
so violated by the magnitude of the outness that you don't see it.  For
instance, the auditor runs a session with the E-meter broken, or no sessions
are given at all.  Not reading the E-meter is a GAE.

     The early E-meter (1951) wouldn't read because the electrodes were little
quarter-inch bars.  Soup cans were substituted and then you could see that
something was going on.  British meters started being supplied with aluminum
pipes.  They aren't as good as cans for a can squeeze.  The meter was first
used for dating incidents on the track.  Ron found that the on-the-beach
incidents gave 16-dial drops.  At that point, he still thought that the higher
the TA went, the clearer the person was.  For the first five months, LRH had
no reality on the meter and would take his own judgment instead of the
meter's, every time.  For the next three years, LRH had to get used to every
new meter.  They were variable.  That is why they are made standard, now: so
you don't have to learn each one's idiosyncracies.

     One reason why E-meters weren't used in the mid "50's was that they got
too complicated.  Don Breeding, Joe Wallace, and Jim Pinkham eventually, in
the late '50's, designed one for LRH in Washington, with a simple, basic
circuit design.  They were transportable, unlike the Volney Matthison models,
which were mains meters with high current that could, if malfunctioning,
deliver a potent electric shock.  Some pcs now can feel current from a battery
meter.  They are just hypersensitive to electricity.  The British Mark IV is
now standard.  Its behavior is very similar to the American meter.

     The tone arm was originally believed to indicate the tone of the PC, on
the tone scale.  Hence the name, "tone arm".  It's really a complete
misnomer.

     Lie detector operators go wholly on body motion, plus respiration, pulse,
and blood pressure.  Since the E-meter can measure the mental reaction of the
PC [e.g. as given in the instant read], it is well in advance of lie
detectors.  Also, unlike a polygraph, the E-meter is a PT machine.
Furthermore, there are only two hundred people out of thousands trained in the
use of polygraphs who can really use them.

     The E-meter is a present time machine.  You use its information as you
get it, not after some comm lag.  You've got to catch the read when it
happens.  You've got to know that, in checking ruds, a stop on the rise is a
read, and that it's got to be an instant read.  It registers the moment the
sense gets to the PC.  If the PC is trying to sell you on something, the read
will be latent because the PC takes an instant to get it and respond.  but the
reactive mind doesn't; it has no time in it and reads instantly.

     You have to be satisfied that the meter works.  Get to where it is an
unimportant, albeit vital, part of the session, and you can have your
attention on the PC instead of the meter.