HCOB: “Murder Routine”

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex
HCO BULLETIN OF 6 JUNE 1984¹; ²
Issue II

Remimeo
Auditors
C/Ses
Cramming Officers
MAAs/Ethics Offs
Tech/Qual
False Purpose RD Auditors
Class XII Auditors
Sec Checkers

“MURDER ROUTINE”

Some years ago I developed a simple technique, that has proven very useful to Sec Checkers, known as “murder routine.” This name came about when an auditor, having some difficulty with a pc insisting he’d never done anything bad in his whole life was directed to ask if the pc had murdered someone, robbed a bank, and other such exaggerated Sec Check questions. Upon being asked such questions, the overt the pc was sitting on became much more confrontable to him, by comparison, and off it came. This became known as the “murder routine.” It is also known as “magnifying the overt” or “worse than” technique.

Where you have a validly reading Confessional question, but the pc is not coming up with a specific overt for one reason or another, you can very often hit pay dirt by giving the pc some samples of noncomparable magnitude. You just give him a horrible comparison, in the face of which the actual overt looks mighty small—and off it comes.

For example, the pc is getting a fall on “overts on cats” but saying, “Well, I . . . really nothing there that I can see, and …” The auditor, having tried unsuccessfully to get a specific overt with good TR 4, can move right in with the “murder routine”: “Well, have you deliberately run down any cats with a car? Strangled any cats just for the fun of it? Lopped some cat’s ears off with the garden shears?” The pc says, “Oh no, nothing, nothing like that! I kicked the neighbor’s cat, that’s all . . . ,” and you’re away: “Well, thank you. Now, when was that?” and so on.

Blood running all over the place, you see, in the picture you’re painting, and the pc surrenders. It begins to look like a much more confrontable thing he’s done, by comparable magnitude.

If this tech isn’t already part of your repertoire as an auditor, drill it well and put it to good use.

L. RON HUBBARD
Founder

Hubbard, L. R. (1984, 6 June). “Murder Routine”. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology (1991 ed., Vol. XII p. 565). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.

Notes