These days, it is exceedingly difficult for people to figure out what the current situation truly is!
Are they, their family, or friends likely to get the “virus”, what are the symptoms? They watch the news channels, read Social Media, and consult Google. This leaves many very distressed, down tone and anxious.
Recently an associate mentioned that a doctor friend of hers, had told her about the increasing number of people who were visiting the practice as, what she called, “Google Patients”. These were people who “knew just what was wrong with them” as they had looked it up on Google! They are masters of self-evaluation.
In this day and age of limited time with doctors coupled with ample opportunity to Google anything and everything, the temptation for people to reach their own conclusions about their illness is strong.
Self-evaluation is not just in the area of body health. The problem with self-evaluation in any area can be fairly disastrous! Be it a body condition, marriage, or business relationship etc. A proper and correct evaluation is essential for any area a person may be having a problem with.
If the person gives himself a wrong diagnosis (a wrong item) it is likely to set him off on a wild goose chase searching endlessly for the correct diagnosis (the right item). There are so many Google articles stating “Do you have these symptoms?”, “These symptoms may indicate that you have ….”.
There is nothing worse than self-diagnosis or “self-listing” as LRH says:
“People can go around and self-list or self-audit trying to get at the right Why or product or purpose after an error has been made.”
And Ron stresses the “REACTION” is alarming:
“NOTHING PRODUCES AS MUCH CASE UPSET AS A WRONG LIST ITEM OR A WRONG LIST”.
“ALL of the more violent or bad reactions on the part of the pc come from out lists.
Nothing else produces such a sharp deterioration in a case or even illness.”
And Ron firmly states:
That is “… the reaction that will occur if a preclear is given a wrong item from a wrong list!”
The above references are all from HCOB 20 APRIL 1972 – C/S Series 78
LRH also says …
The out-list (meaning over listing or wrong items) produces the most fantastic HE&R.” (Human Emotion and Reaction) LRH, HCOPL 25 June 72, “Recovering Students and PCs”,
“Thus, a law: a person takes the viewpoint of that person who has most evaluated for him.”
LRH BEINGNESS and CERTAINTY PROCESSING PAB circa 1953
Just look how we are being evaluated for by the news channels, newspapers, and Social Media!
“Data is your data only so long as you have evaluated it. It is your data by authority, or it is your data. If it is your data by authority, somebody has forced it upon you, and at best it is little more than a light aberration. Of course, if you asked a question of a man whom you thought knew his business and he gave you his answer, that datum was not forced upon you.
But if you went away from him believing from then on that such a datum existed without taking the trouble to investigate the answer for yourself—without comparing it to the known universe—you were falling short of completing the cycle of learning.
Any person who accepts knowledge without questioning it and evaluating it for himself is demonstrating himself to be in apathy toward that sphere of knowledge. It demonstrates that the people in the United States today must be in a low state of apathy with regard to politics in order to accept without question everything that happens.”
How to Study Scientology Issue 90 M [1959, ca. late February] The Magazine of DIANETICS and SCIENTOLOGY from Washington, D.C. L. Ron Hubbard
We in Scientology have all the tools to make correct evaluation of circumstances and conditions. It is important to use them.
“CERTAINTY ITSELF IS KNOWLEDGE.”
“A DATUM IS SECONDARY KNOWLEDGE.”
“THE MOST CERTAIN CERTAINTY IS PERCEPTION.”
“THE LEAST CERTAINTY EVALUATION.”
“A triangle of certainties would indicate the following formula of certainties. There are three universe-types on each one of which one can achieve a certainty. The most important of these types is one’s own universe; the second most important is the MEST universe; the third most important is the class known as “others” universes.”
A certainty on each one of these universes could exist in each of three-time categories. The most important of these is the present for each universe; the second most important of these from the standpoint of desirable certainty is the future of each universe; and the third most important of these is the past of each universe.
Two conditions of certainty can exist for each class of universe and for each time aspect of universes and one is a certainty that it exists and the other a certainty that it does not exist.
Thus, we have eighteen certainties derived from this formula. The rehabilitation, then, of any one of these certainties will find a resurgence in the case; the rehabilitation of all these certainties, if possible, would take one theoretically to the highest possible levels of the Tone Scale.”
LRH, “General comments, group processing and a summary of new work:
Certainties” dated 10 May 1953, Tech Vol II page 76-77.