HCOB: Potential Trouble Source, Mechanics Of

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO BULLETIN OF 14 OCTOBER 1965¹
Issued 21 November 2000

Remimeo
HCO
Tech/Qual
C/Ses
Auditors
Ethics Officers
De-PTSers
PTS/SP Checksheet

POTENTIAL TROUBLE SOURCE, MECHANICS OF

(Taken from an LRH Tape of 14 Oct. 65, “Briefing of Review Auditors.”)

A potential trouble source is a connection with a suppressive. I’ll give you the exact mechanics of it:

Postulate-counter-postulate is the anatomy of a problem. This belongs in actual fact at Grade I. And it’s just this: postulate-counter-postulate. Postulate versus postulate. That is the definition and the anatomy of a problem. And there is no other definition to a problem. There can be several counter-postulates; there can be several going out like this, but that makes several problems. The central problem is always postulate-counter-postulate.

The guy has had a purpose in life and somebody has suppressed it, or a guy has had a purpose over a twenty-four-hour period and somebody suppressed that purpose. In other words, his purpose was his postulate, the other person saying he couldn’t do it was the counter-postulate.

That is simply the anatomy of a problem. And there is no other reason for rolly coaster. There just is no other datum.

People don’t rolly coaster because they got into an engram. People don’t roily coaster because the auditor misread the action. People don’t roily coaster because his father was a Methodist and has been dead since birth. So don’t ever fall for two seconds for any other reason for a roily coaster than postulate-counter-postulate. There isn’t any other reason.

SP is a version of this. It’s a version of a problem and is a specialized kind of problem, and that is what causes the roily coaster. The individual has run into a postulate-counter-postulate since his last improvement, which makes him a potential trouble source.

Potential trouble source means the case is going to go up and fall down. And he’s a trouble source because he’s going to get upset. He’s a trouble source because he’s going to make trouble. And he’s trouble for the auditor and he’s trouble for us

and he’s trouble for himself and so forth. And he really does make trouble. That’s very carefully named.

The SP isn’t making trouble. He’s just poisoning the whole universe. But he isn’t making trouble; he’s just going squash! Anybody says anything to him—squash! It’s the PTS who makes the trouble.

Now, this is the whole backbone of ethics. There isn’t anything more to ethics than this basic purpose: ethics exists to get tech in.

If you ever see ethics being put in that throws tech out, then ethics is being used in a suppressive fashion. The only way that you could use ethics suppressively is use it in such a way that it threw tech out. Because the purpose of ethics is to put tech in. If you’ve got ethics, you can get tech in. You carry on ethics long enough to get tech in, and that’s all the longer you carry it.

But in the process of getting tech in you very often will run into a rolly coaster—and that is, a case worsens after it improves, as easily as that. The case did all right in yesterday’s session; comes to this session, falls on his head. That’s a rolly coaster.

And there’s no other cause for it than postulate-counter-postulate.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

Compilation assisted by LRH Technical Research and Compilations

Notes