In an auditing session the auditor helps another person locate and examine hidden sources of difficulties, including mental image pictures containing physical pain, trauma and painful emotions. Auditing, then, is the means by which one can become more aware of who he is, what has happened to him and the extent of his true potential.

     Precisely to that end, the auditor employs processes— exact sets of questions to help one examine otherwise unknown and unwanted sources of difficulty. The procedure is predicated on the fact that if the true source of what troubles us is fully viewed and understood, then the trouble would no longer be. Thus, for example, if one were suffering the ill-effects of some long-buried engramic trauma, auditing is the means by which that trauma may be inspected, understood and nullified. In that regard, auditing may be seen as a procedure by which we can recover those things we are unaware of, not inspecting, but which adversely affect us. As more and more hitherto unknown data from the reactive mind is recovered, one commensurately becomes more and more aware of who he is, what has happened to him and the extent of his true potentials.

	The spiritual being, which Mr. Hubbard termed thetan, is who you are.

     What all this means subjectively is, of course, somewhat ineffable; for by it very definition auditing involves an ascent to states not hitherto known. But in very basic terms it may be said that Scientology does not ask one to strive towards higher ethical conduct, greater awareness, happiness and sanity. Rather, it provides a route to states where all this simply is, where one is more ethical, able, self-determined and happier because that which makes us otherwise has been eliminated. Or in other words, as Mr. Hubbard himself once explained to those new to Scientology, “we are extending to you the precious gift of freedom and immortality—factually, honestly.”