First Act

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The First Act

When auditing another person, an auditor will sometimes need to exert control over the preclear in order to be effective. It can be challenging for a preclear to push through difficult aspects of his mind. That’s when the auditor takes action to help the preclear.

Regardless of needing to step in sometimes, the auditor always moves toward enabling the preclear to be in charge of his own life. An auditor should never attempt to control a preclear in a negative way, or override a preclear who is in positive control of himself. Therefore, before auditing a preclear an auditor first examines himself. That is the auditor’s First Act. He asks himself questions about his intentions for the preclear. Does the auditor have the preclear’s best interests at heart? Does the auditor have control issues of his own? If the auditor finds within himself any reason he doesn’t want the preclear to fully be in charge of his own self, the auditor needs to deal with that before proceeding. The auditor may need to receive auditing himself. The auditor should ensure his objective is to improve the preclear’s self-control. Only with this intention firmly in place should an auditor proceed with auditing another.

Example: Tom recently lost a loved one. Tom went to an auditor for help dealing with his grief. Understandably, Tom is having a hard time with the fact that his loved one is gone. He keeps avoiding this by staying up too late playing video games. He doesn’t arrive for his session times with his auditor. The auditor decides it’s time to exert a little control to help Tom get through this. He arrives at Tom’s house to help him get to bed on time. He picks Tom up for his auditing session. Through all of this, the auditor wants Tom to be in charge of Tom. Once Tom starts helping himself, the auditor relaxes his control efforts.

(Advanced Procedure and Axioms, “Advanced Procedure”)

There are 15 Acts for an auditor to perform. They are covered in Advanced Procedure and Axioms, “Advanced Procedure” and Handbook for Preclears, starting from the chapter “Processing Section, The First Act.”

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