The Foster Report

APPENDIX II:
GLOSSARY OF SCIENTOLOGY TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

(Compiled mainly from "Scientology Abridged Dictionary")

ABERRATION
Irrational or deranged behaviour or thought on, or about, a specific subject or subjects, resulting from the influence of the Reactive Mind upon the individual in relationship to that subject or subjects.

AFFINITY
Degree of liking or affection or lack of it. (This is often expressed as an emotion/enthusiasm towards a person betokens more affinity than apathy.)

ANALYTICAL MIND
(analyser) This mind consists of visual pictures, either of the past or the physical universe, monitored and presided over by the knowingness of a thetan. The keynote of the analytical mind is awareness; one knows what one is concluding and doing. It combines perceptions of the immediate environment, of the past (via pictures) and estimations of the future into conclusions which are based upon the realities of situations.

ANATEN
An abbreviation of "analytical attenuation" meaning a diminution or weakening of the analytical awareness of an individual for a brief or extensive period of time. If sufficiently great, it can result in unconsciousness. (It stems from the restimulation of an engram which contains pain and unconsciousness.)

AOUK
Advanced Organisation United Kingdom.

ARC
A word made from the initial letters of Affinity, Reality and Communication which together equate to understanding.(These are the three things necessary to the understanding of something - one has to have some affinity for it, it has to be real to him to some degree and he needs some communication with it before he can understand it.)

AS-IS
To view anything exactly as it is, without any distortions or lies, at which mornent it will vanish and cease to exist.

AUDITOR
A listener or one who listens carefully to what people have to say. An auditor is a person trained and qualified in applying Scientology processes to others for their betterment.

AWARENESS OF AWARENESS UNIT
The individual, the personality.

BANK
A colloquial name for the Reactive Mind. (This is what the procedures of Scientology are devoted to disposing of, for it is only a burden to an individual and he is much better off without it. A Clear has no bank.)

BASIC
The first incident, such as an engram or overt act, of a chain of similar incidents.

BEINGNESS
The assumption or choosing of a category of identity. Beingness is assumed by oneself or given to oneself, or is attained. Examples of beingness would be one's own name, one's profession, one's physical characteristics, one's role in a game - each and all of these things could be called one's beingness. TO GRANT BEINGNESS means to grant life to something: to permit or allow other people to have beingness.

BLOW
A colloquialism for a sudden departure. It is usually used to describe either the sudden dissipation of mass in the mind with an accompanying feeling of relief, or someone leaving, ceasing to be where he should really be, or just ceasing to be audited.

BOIL-OFF
A state of lessened awareness to the point of unconsciousness.

BUTTON
Items, words, phrases, subjects or areas that are easily restimulatable in an individual by the words or actions of other people, and which causes him discomfort, embarrassment or upset, or make him laugh uncontrollably.

CAUSE
Full effect.

CF
Central files.

CHARGE
Harmful energy or force accumulated and stored within the Reactive Mind, resulting from the conflicts and unpleasant experiences that a person has had. (Auditing discharges this charge so that it is no longer there to affect the individual.)

CIRCUIT
A part of an individual's bank that behaves as though it were someone or something separate from him and that either talks to him or goes into action of its own accord, and may even, if severe enough, take control of him while it operates. (A tune that keeps going around in someone's head is an example of a circuit).

CLEAR
A person who has completed Grade VII by erasing his whole bank. He no longer has a Reactive Mind or time track, and he is again wholly himself and can follow his own basic purposes.

COMMITTEE OF EVIDENCE (Comm Ev)
Part of the Ethics system of a Scientology Organization, being a fact finding group appointed and empowered to impartially investigate and recommend upon Scientology matters of a fairly severe ethical nature.

COMM LAG (Communication Lag)
The time it takes for a preclear to give an answer to a question that the auditor has asked him, regardless of whether he is silent until he gives the answer, or has been talking in the interim. Also applies to the delay between the giving of an auditing command by the auditor and the execution of that command by the preclear.

COMMUNICATION
The interchange of ideas or objects between two people or terminals.

CONTROL
The ability to start, change and stop things at one's own choice.

DEMON
A by-pass circuit in the mind. Probably an electronic mechanism.

DEV-T
Developed and unnecessary traffic in any organization or between organizations, consisting of off-line, off policy or off-origin despatches or other communications.

DISPERSAL
The action of a dynamic ol purpose meeting an engram.

DYNAMIC
The urge, thrust and purpose of life - SURVIVE! - in its eight manifestations.

ED
Executive Director.

ENGRAM
A mental image picture of an experience containing pain, unconsciousness, and a real or fancied threat to survival; it is a recording in the Reactive Mind of something which actually happened to an individual in the past and which contained pain and unconsciousness, both of which are recorded in the mental image picture called an engram.

ENTHETA
Means enturbulated theta (thought or life): especially refers to communications, which, based on lies and confusions, are slanderous, choppy or destructive in an attempt to overwhelm or suppress a person or group.

ENTURBULATE
Cause to be turbulent or agitated and disturbed.

ETHICS
Rationality toward the highest level of survival for the individual, the future race, the group and mankind, and the other dynamics taken collectively. Ethics are reason and the contemplation of optimum survival.

FACSIMILE
A mental copy of one's perceptions of the physical universe sometime in the past, and also known as a mental image picture.

FLYERS
Printed promotional pieces advertising books, tapes, etc.

F/N
FREE NEEDLE (FLOATING NEEDLE): This is a needle manifestation of the E-Meter of great importance, as it indicates the preclear has reached a state of Release and is the end point of any process. A free needle moves in an idle uninfluenced motion. It appears to float.

GENETIC ENTITY
A composite of all the cellular experience recorded along the genetic line of the organism to the present body. It has the mainfestation of a single identity. It is not the theta being or "I".

GPM
Means Goals Problem Mass. A GPM is composed of mental masses and significances which have an exact pattern, unvarying from person to person, whose significance dictate a certain type of behavior and whose masses, when pulled in on the individual, cause psychosomatic effects, such as illnesses, pains or feelings of heaviness and tiredness.

GRADE
An award made to a preclear in the form of a certificate for having attained one of the eight states of Release or the state of Clear.

HASI
Hubbard Association of Scientologists International.

HAT
Slang for the title and work of a post in Scientology Organization.

HCO
Hubbard Communications Office.

HCOB
Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin.

HCO P/L
Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter.

HDA
Hubbard Dianetic Auditor.

HGC
Hubbard Guidance Centre.

KEY-IN
The moment an earlier upset or painful incident has been restimulated.

LOCK
A mental image picture of a non-painful but disturbing experience the person has experienced and which depends for its force on an earlier secondary and engram which the experience has restimulated.

MEST
The physical universe. A word coined from the initial letters of Matter, Energy, Space and Time, which are the component parts of the physical universe. Also used as an adjective, in the same sense to mean physical as in 'mest universe', meaning the 'physical universe'.

MISEMOTION
Emotion which is irrational and inappropriate to the present time situation. Misemotion is also emotion which has been suppressed and which remains part of an individual's locks and secondaries unless he is audited.

NULLING
The auditor's action in saying items from a list to a preclear and noting the reaction of the preclear's bank by thc use of an E-Meter.

OBNOSIS
Observation of the obvious. The only way one sees anything is by observing the obvious: one looks at the is-ness of something, at what is actually there. Fortunately, the ability to obnose is not in any sense "inborn" or mystical. It is easily regained and improved through Scientology.

ORG
Organisation.

O.T. (OPERATING THETAN)
A Clear who has been familiarized with his environment to a point of total cause over matter, energy, space, time and thought, and who is not in a body.

OVERT-ACT (OVERT)
Harmful or contra-survival act. Precisely, it is an act of commission or omission that harms the greater number of dynamics. Therefore, a failure to eradicate something or stop.

PERCEPTIC
A neologism for any sense message such as a sight, sound, smell, etc.

P.C. (PRECLEAR)
This term covers anyone who is not a clear; however it is principally used to describe a person who, through Scientology processing, is finding out more about himself and life.

PROCESSING
That action or actions, governed by the technical disciplines and codes of Scientology, of administering a process to a preclear in order to release or free him.

PTS
(Potential Trouble Source.) Any person who, while active in Scientology or a preclear, remains connected to a suppressive person or group. (A person or preclear roller-coasters, i.e. gets better, then worse, only when he is connected to a suppressive person or group, and he must, in order to make his gains from Scientology permanent, either handle the source of suppression or disconnect from it.

REACTIVE MIND
That portion of a person's mind which works on a stimulus-response basis (given a certain stimulus, it gives a certain response) which is not under his volitional control and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body and actions.

RELEASE
A person whose Reactive Mind is keyed out and is not influencing him. There are eight grades of Release - they are, from the lowest to the highest, Grade 0 - Communications Release, Grade I - Problems Release, Grade II - Relief Release, Grade III - Freedom Release, Grade IV - Ability Release, Grade V - Power Release, Grade VA - Power Plus Release, Grade VI - Whole Track Release. Each is a distinct and definite step toward greater levels of awareness and ability.

REVERIE
In Dianetics the state achieved by withdrawing the attention from present time and turning it into the recalling of past experiences, facilitated by closing one's eyes.

ROCK SLAM
A crazy, unequal, jerky motion of the E-Meter needle.

ROCKSLAMMERS
Persons who Rock Slam on Scientology or associated items are Security Risks.

SCS
Start, change, stop. (The anatomy of control).

SH
Saint Hill.

SOMATIC
Physical pain or discomfort of any kind, especially painful or uncomfortable physical perceptions stemming from the Reactive Mind.

SOMATIC MIND
The genetic entity plus the brain system of the body.

SONIC
The ability to recall a sound so that one can hear it again as one originally heard it, in full tone and volume.

SP
(Suppressive Person or Group.) One who actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by suppressive acts.

SQUIRRELLING
The action of altering Scientology; off-beat practices.

STANDARD TECH
The exact processes and auditing actions laid down and used for the invariable resolution of cases, taught and used without variation by all Scientology auditors.

STRAIGHT WIRE
The process of questioning by which a preclear, while remaining in present time, is enabled to recover and compute past data. (Straight line memory technique).

TECH
(Technology). The methods of application of an art or science as opposed to mere knowledge of the science or art itself.

THETA
Energy peculiar to life or a thetan which acts upon material in the physical universe and animates it, mobilizes it changes it; natural creative energy of a thetan which he has free to direct toward survival goals, especially when it manifests itself as high tone, constructive comrnunications.

THETAN
The person himself - not his body or name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else - that which is aware of being aware; the identity that IS the individual. (From Theta, the Greek symbol for 'thought' or perhaps 'spirit'.)

TONE SCALE
A scale measuring and relating the various factors of behaviour, emotion and thought to levels on the scale. (The book, Science of Survival, by L. Ron Hubbard contains a full description of the tone scale and its applications in life).

TONE 40
Intention without reservation or limit.

UP-STAT
Up-going statistic.

VALENCE
The unwitting assumption by one individual of the characteristics of another individual.

VISIO
Ability to see in facsimile form something one has seen earlier so that one sees it again in the same colour, dimension scale, brightness and detail as it was originally viewed.

WOG
Man off the street.

WW
World Wide.


Previous chapter Next chapter

Back to start

Last updated 21 February 1997

Page maintained by Martin Poulter (plmlp@mail.bris.ac.uk)