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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which is available to all those who subscribe to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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This is just for fun
by Phil Spickler
15 Jun 00

Hi, Thom and Tom and fellow Listers,
        Many thanks for joining the "Who's got the best Service Fac?" contest.
  I can see that the spirit of play, while somewhat bruised and battered, is
yet alive and well on Ye Deare Olde IVy-su list.

        It may be necessary in the contest to open some sub-categories, such
as The Most Service Facs in One Posting, as well as The Single Longest (and
Shortest) Service Fac;  also, the Service Fac Whose Creator Has the Least
Awareness Of.

        Speaking of Service Facsimiles, and who isn't these days,  Ron back in
1963, during the St. Hill Special Briefing Course, started talking about the
idee fixe (French, you know, for the fixed idea) as one of the simplest
definitions of service facsimile, and one of the easiest diagnostic tools to
use in spotting service facsimiles and being able to point them out.

        Now as Rowland gracefully pointed out in an earlier posting on this
same date, the granddaddy or most basic area for finding fixed ideas, of
course, is the area of implants -- your own, or someone else's -- 'cause
implants usually put in various ideas, and like the engrams that they are,
back these ideas up with a lot of fancy forms of pain and unconsciousness, so
that when they finally surface they're extremely fixed.  And of course, as
time and a half goes by, they are the basis for what all of us suffer from at
different times, which is to say, fixed or unchanging ideas that we can't
easily drop and which don't allow us to examine other or differing ideas.

        And so this whole business of implants and engrams leads to fixed
postulates, fixed purposes, fixed considerations, fixed opinions, etc. etc.,
and these can cause trouble simply because (a) the individual doesn't really
know analytically how he came by such ideas, and (b) they are outside of the
guy's self-determined control, so that it is very very very difficult for the
poor fellow to change his mind; and of course the ability to change your mind
at will is about as far as you can get in the direction of being really free.

         No mind at all might be a lot freer; but heck, I think we've got
enough Zen masters at the moment, and besides, there's not much game without
a mind.

        So in examining our Service Fac contest, it's good to look at some of
the things that have gotten posted either by self or others, and you might be
able to spot some pretty good stuff as entries in said contest.

         Thom Pearson was kind enough to mention an earlier contest which was
called the Unpopularity Contest -- I can't recall who won it; it became so
popular that I may have claimed the title for myself.  I can see from what
Thom said that the contest got closed before he and perhaps others truly had
a chance to post entries, so I hereby will entertain further entries to that
contest, if it proves to be as popular as it was the last time it was au
courant.

         One of my own favorite and personal Service Facsimiles is -- well,
I'd better save that one for another time, but it probably colors everything
I have to say on the IVy list.

        Another piece of information from the Commodore (Ron, that is) was the
statememt that "Reality is proportional to the charge off the case."  I've
looked at that one over the years, and I think I've always hoped that it
wasn't true, but I found that in auditing people, when they did get a lot of
charge off a case (theirs or someone else's) their reality, or ability to
perceive reality, did seem to improve greatly -- reality here being defined
as the agreed-upon apparency of existence.  There may be other and better
definitions than that, but it's the one I'm referring to when I repeat Ron's
aphorism that someone's reality is proportional to the charge off someone's
case.

       Now if you treat human beings as a composite, which I have found to be
the most realistic approach to what's hiding behind all that beautiful skin,
the more charge you can get off of the more cases the guy has misidentified
with, the better his reality will be.

        As a footnote to the discussion about whether it is good or bad to
evaluate for a preclear, a client, or whatever you want to call the guy or
gal that's sitting across from you, it seems to me (he said, calling on his
vast years of experience) (the aforementioned is an entry in the Service Fac
contest) -- it seems to me that there are so many tools available in
Dianetics and Scientology which make it possible to assist someone to get
into session (which is to say, interested in case and willing to talk or
communicate about it) that it's hard for me to imagine a situation where it
would be necessary to evaluate, or as someone else suggested earlier
invalidate, in order to have a good and rewarding session.

       Well, enough for now -- my mother was frightened by an encyclopedia
when she was pregnant with my body.  Keep the entries coming and have lots of
fun; it looks like the list is heading for a Grade 4 release or better.  All
the best and worst -- as ever, and never,
        Phil