The illustrated Tone Scale on this page shows you some of the most important tone levels that you will find in people. It goes from the emotional tone of serenity (a calm, peaceful state we can also call Happiness) at the very top down through Enthusiasm, Boredom, Antagonism, Anger, Fear, Grief and Apathy. Below that a person can be in the emotional tone of Body Death (he acts like he is actually dead or could actually be unconscious).

You can use the Tone Scale to spot the emotional tone level of people that you live and work with, as well as anyone you are in contact with at any time.

Being able to spot and know what tone level a person is in—either at that tone level for a brief period of time or always in that tone level—can help you predict how that person will behave when you communicate to him or interact with him.

Use this scale to learn how to quickly and accurately spot the tone level of people around you.

THE TONE SCALE AND UNDERSTANDING

The tones of the Emotional Tone Scale are very exact. Every person on Earth is somewhere on the Emotional Tone Scale and he moves up and down the scale following its exact pattern. People always come up or go down through these tones, one after the other.

The emotional tones are also called the tones of affinity. Affinity means love or liking, and it is used here as the idea of how much you like or dislike someone or something. You can easily see this if you take someone who is at the top of the scale. Someone in happiness has a lot of love or liking for other people. But a man in anger does not have much love or liking for anyone.

Going from the top to the bottom of the Tone Scale, a person moves through the following levels:

• SERENITY
• ENTHUSIASM
• BOREDOM
• ANTAGONISM
• ANGER
• FEAR
• GRIEF
• APATHY
• BODY DEATH

There are many small stops between these tones, but anyone knowing anything about people should definitely know these emotions.

When a person in apathy improves his tone, he feels grief.

When a person in grief improves his tone, he feels fear.

When a person in fear improves his tone, he feels anger.

When a person in anger improves his tone, he feels antagonism.

When a person in antagonism improves his tone, he feels boredom.

When a person in boredom improves his tone, he feels enthusiasm.

When a person in enthusiasm improves his tone, he feels serenity—or happiness.

People can be in any tone continuously over a long period of time—grief, fear, anger, antagonism, boredom or even enthusiasm.

Just as we have the Tone Scale covering the subject of affinity, we also have one for communication. On the level of each of the emotions, we have a communication factor.

Naturally, when a person is “stuck” on any of the bands of the Tone Scale—apathy, grief, fear, anger, antagonism, boredom, enthusiasm or happiness—he voices communications with that emotional tone.

A person who is always angry about something is stuck in anger. Such a person is not as bad off as somebody below apathy, but he is still rather dangerous to have around since he will make trouble. And a person who is angry does not control things well. The communication of people at these various levels on the Tone Scale is quite fascinating. They say things and handle communication in a specific and recognizable way for each level of the Tone Scale.

Just as in affinity and communication, there is a level of reality for each of the tone levels. Reality has to do with solids. In other words, the solidity of things and the emotional tone of people have a definite connection.

People low on the Tone Scale cannot tolerate anything solid. They cannot tolerate a solid object. The thing is not real to them. It is thin or lacking in weight. As they come up the Tone Scale, the same object becomes more and more solid and they can finally see how solid it really is. Things are bright to them or very, very dull, depending on where they are on the Tone Scale.

If you looked through the eyes of an angry man, you would see a world which was “dangerously” solid, where all the solids appeared as a “violent threat” toward him.

A person at the level of happiness on the Tone Scale can see solids as they are, as bright as they are and likes to have solid things about him. In other words, as a person goes up the Tone Scale from the lowest level to the highest, things can get more and more solid and more and more real.

Affinity is most closely related to space. In fact, affinity could be defined as the idea of distance, since people who are far apart or close together have different levels of affinity. If you have a lot of affinity for someone, you like sharing your space with that person. Someone in happiness likes to have people share his space. But as a person goes down the Tone Scale, the amount of affinity drops and he cannot have other people sharing his space. Take, for example, a person at the tone level of anger. He does not want anyone in his space.

Reality, as we have seen, has to do with solids.

Communication consists of the flow of ideas or particles across space between solids or between two or more people.

Affinity, Reality and Communication all add up to UNDERSTANDING. To have understanding with anyone, you must have all three of its parts—Affinity, Reality and Communication. Let’s see how this works when dealing with other people and also using the Tone Scale.

Men who can do things are very high on affinity, very high in terms of reality and are very capable in terms of communication. They are easily understood.

So how would you talk to a man?

Your ability to talk to someone has to do with your emotional response to him. Everyone has different emotional responses to different people around them.

To successfully communicate with someone, you must first have some affinity for him. If you do not care about the other person at all, you will have a great deal of difficulty talking to him—that is certain. The way to talk to someone, then, would be to find something to like about him and to discuss something he can agree with you about. This is the downfall of most communication—a person does not discuss subjects that the other person has any point of agreement with at all.

That with which we agree tends to be more real than that with which we do not agree. There is a definite relationship between agreement and reality. Those things are real which we agree are real. Those things are not real which we agree are not real. For example, two men could be joking about the clothing of a third man who is present in the same room and can hear what they are saying. If the man overhearing the conversation does not agree with the discussion about his clothes, he will drop in emotional tone and will actually become less real to the two people who are discussing him.

To establish reality, you must find something with which you both agree. Then you attempt to maintain as high an affinity level as possible by finding something you like about the other person. You will then be able to talk with him. If you do not have the first two points (something you can agree on and something you like about him), it is fairly certain that the third point—communication—will not be present (which is to say, you will not be able to talk to him easily).

For example, if you were going for a job interview and just started telling the person interviewing you about the last vacation you had, there would likely be little agreement. But let’s say you found out that he owned a large sailing yacht and that was his hobby, you could begin the communication by telling him that you had been aboard a yacht recently and really loved it. There would be immediate agreement between the two of you.

If one really communicates and communicates well to people—listens to what they have to say and lets them know they’ve been heard and says what he has to say to them, gently enough and often enough, so that it is actually received by them—he will regain his ability to work with and coordinate the actions of people immediately surrounding him.

This sounds like magic. And it is. It is Scientology.