The transmutation of a contact rebus serves to plant clues within it, clues that an observant target will interpret as a genuinely positive gambit. These clues indicate that transmutation has occurred and occasionally reveal just what has been transmuted. However, those possessing the greatest ability to detransmute the contact rebus are independent third parties or individuals responding with an untransmuted contact rebus (Motivational Work, Values and Theory, Part 1, pages 235 237).
One clue is that different types of discord or dissonance are evident in the contact rebus, meaning that the various rebus components are incongruent with one another or the contact rebus as a whole. One of the challenges of motivational work is trying to identify such dissonance, which demands a sleuth-like mind.
Case Study
The same kind of dissonance occurs when two parties involved in an everyday conversation devote a disproportionate amount of energy to it, or when one of the parties feels strong antipathy for the other although they have had no prior acquaintance, as in the following example:
A woman is about to start a computer course with other people from a variety of professions. As soon as Mattie walks into the room, she feels instant antagonism towards him, dismissing him as self-righteous and arrogant and wanting nothing further to do with him. A year later, she marries this same man.
Case Study
Where teenagers are concerned, we see evidence of negation in Alice’s contact rebus, dissonance being evident in that although she is well aware of the time she should be back home (and double-checks before leaving) she expresses amazement over her parents’ reaction to her late return. Likewise, there are two dissonant chords in Alice’s blasé attitude: she expends much energy in making a point of not comprehending her parents’ anxiety, and she deviates from her normally conscientious observance of punctuality.
