Chronic Tone
Refers to a person’s habitual tone level in most areas of life. A Chronic Tone is the one a person continues to manifest over a long period of time. When a person is comfortable enough to let their guard down, you will see the Chronic Tone come out.
Urgent situations can also cause Chronic Tone to reveal itself.
For example, let’s say someone faints at the grocery store. People who notice the fainter each react different ways. Some folks may get uncomfortable and try to pretend they didn’t notice. They just keep walking because they are in the emotional tone band of anxiety or fear. If someone is low-toned enough, they may actually not notice the person fainted even if it happens right next to them. Their powers of observation are simply too obscured to be able to notice.
The higher-toned someone is, the more likely they will try to help in some way. A conservative person may not want to get to close to the fainter, but they will call for help. An enthusiastic person or higher will take action to help. They may try to catch the person before they fall or will go over and try to administer first aid or other immediate assistance as best they can.
Determining someone’s Chronic Tone takes training. And even with training, it takes time and thorough observation. Never assume too quickly that you know someone’s Chronic Tone.
Even in a case where an urgent situation occurs, you wouldn’t want to say you’d fully determined someone’s Chronic Tone based on their reaction. There can be unknown factors that throw a kink in how a person responds. For example, let’s again take the situation of the person fainting at the store. Vern normally jumps right in to help people, but today he got some bad news. The news shook him and he is not himself today. Or take Ethel. She is chronically depressed, but she’s also an EMT. With her training, jumping to someone’s rescue is an everyday occurrence. Her chronic depression could easily remain hidden.
To learn more about how to determine someone’s Chronic Tone Level, you can read Science of Survival and its corresponding Chart of Human Evaluation.
Tone Scale
1. A scale of human emotion. In our lives, we experience different kinds of emotions every day. Each emotion on the scale is referred to as a Tone, or Tone Level.
Anyone can benefit from learning about the tone scale. Doing so helps one understand and predict the behavior of the people around them better. The most practical part of the tone scale for use in daily life is the 0-4 range. (Ability Magazine 114A)
A preclear can experience many emotions during a session. And with a good auditor and program, a preclear’s overall position on the tone scale will improve. By understanding the tone scale, an auditor can do a better job helping the person in front of them. When training to become an auditor, one learns to understand and use The Tone Scale in Full.
You can view an abridged Tone Scale below, and in The Chart of Human Evaluation. Column A gives you the numbers associated with emotions. Columns F and G are good for initial study. For in-depth information on the 0-4 range of this scale and all the columns of The Chart of Human Eval, read Science of Survival (SOS). The Chart of Human Eval was originally published in the back of SOS in 1951.
Here’s an abridged Tone Scale to get you started:
4.0 Enthusiasm
3.3 Strong Interest
3.0 Conservatism
2.5 Boredom
2.0 Antagonism
1.8 Pain
1.5 Anger
1.4 Hate
1.1 Covert Hostility
1.0 Fear
0.5 Grief
.05 Apathy
0.0 Death
PC Indicators
It’s important to pay attention to how a preclear is doing. Obviously, the auditor should pay attention during a session. But sometimes things occur before or after a session as well. An indicator is situation or state the preclear is in which indicates whether the session or case is going well or badly. These indicators are observations. An auditor can, and should, make these observations. A pc may bring up how he’s doing to the auditor, which is an indicator. Or someone outside of the pc or auditor (like a friend or spouse) may notice something that occurs with the preclear. Also, the case supervisor pays attention to pc indicators by studying the worksheets from preclear sessions.
Some of the ways to notice the preclear’s indicators:
- With your eyes and ears. Look at the preclear. Is she happy? Sad? Does the preclear say she’s improving? Getting worse? Feeling stuck? Is she arriving for scheduled sessions?
- If the auditor used an e-meter during the session (some auditing is done without an e-meter), that gives the auditor signs regarding how the preclear is doing.
- Looking at the worksheets is another way to track pc indicators.
- Paying attention over time to whether the pc is moving up or down the Tone Scale (or Chart of Human Evaluation).
- If there is good improvement, great, no need to change anything. But if the preclear seems unhappy, or is improving slowly, or seems kind of stagnant, it’s time to dig in and do something different.
2. Indicators is sometimes used colloquially to refer to how someone is doing. In this case, you’re not referring to how the person is doing in regards to auditing. You’re referring to how they’re doing in life or some aspect of life.
Example: When Stacey is trying to decide whether she wants to keep dating Brian, she thinks about her indicators. Does she feel sad or happy about staying with Brian? When she’s around Brian, what are her indicators? Does being around him make her feel confident and happy? Or does he make her feel insecure? Or bored?
Example: Maude asks Joyce what she wants for dinner. Joyce can’t decide. Maude makes some suggestions and watches Joyce’s face for indicators. Do any of the dinner choices make Joyce smile? Or frown?
(PC Indicators HCOB 3 MAY 1980)
Misemotion
An emotion that doesn’t fit the circumstances. Being misemotional isn’t simply about having complicated feelings regarding a complicated situation in life. Misemotion is about having feelings that aren’t rational given what’s happening.
Ref: Science of Survival, p. 49
Example:
Jake’s life is going very well. He’s got the job he always wanted, a wife who is a great partner and friend, and his future looks bright. But instead of rejoicing, he has an underlying anger for no reason he can put his finger on.
Hester’s life is falling apart. Her boyfriend just broke up with her, she got fired, and she’s going to lose her apartment at the end of the month. Instead of reacting with a sense of urgency to deal with these things, she feels blissful. She says “everything happens for a reason” and is waiting for something great to come her way.
Both Jake and Hester are reacting in ways that doesn’t seem logical based on their situations. They are both experiencing misemotion.
To learn more about human emotions, read Science of Survival and its accompanying Chart of Human Evaluation.
