Auditors are occasionally unsuccessful in running present time problems, life computations and service facsimiles because they themselves are not alert to the definition of a problem.

The mechanisms used by the preclear in living to keep his attention off the Rock are: to get involved with many present time problems, and ARC Breaks.

A problem is two-terminaled. A single terminal cannot make a problem. The basic problem is Postulate-Counter Postulate. Therefore, when the preclear says his wife is a present time problem and the auditor runs “A problem of comparable magnitude to a wife”, he is not running a problem at all. He is running a condition. For this to be a problem the wife would have to include another terminal.

We used to believe that a thetan had to have problems. This is not true. A thetan thinks he needs problems to keep his attention exteriorized from the Rock chain and when the Rock is not run out he will continue to dream up problems in present time to keep his attention enforcedly fixed elsewhere than the Rock chain. A thetan will also dream up ARC Breaks to exteriorize his attention from a present time problem.

An auditor should make the preclear define the problem accurately as a problem, not as a condition or situation. The problem of “my wife’s desire for another man” is a problem. The problem of “my husband’s fooling around with machinery” is a problem.

The common denominator of all locks on the Rock is ARC Breaks. Therefore, in running the Rock, expert auditing is necessary since in this case as in no other, the preclear will dream up ARC Breaks. When his attention flicks back to the Rock when he is between sessions, he will get himself involved in present time problems and ARC Breaks obsessively to keep his attention from going back on to the Rock chain.

Wherever a PT problem arises it is up to the auditor to locate an actual problem and get the preclear to describe it. He then runs “Invent a problem of comparable magnitude to that problem.” Thereafter frequently he says, “Describe that problem to me” and makes sure each time he does that the problem is described as a problem, not a single terminal or a condition. When running a PT problem he also asks, “Does that seem to be a problem to you now?”

Thus, we have the answer to the fact that a session will not progress unless the present time problem is run and alleviated and we also have the answer to the ARC Break difficulties. If the preclear is unsuccessful in keeping his attention off the Rock by a present time problem, he will then dramatize the Rock chain, which is another combination of motives which explains preclear behavior.

Failure to get the preclear to define the problem as a problem will result in a failure to relieve the PT problem and the auditor and the preclear may proceed into the session believing implicitly that they have run the PT problem when, as a matter of fact, they have not even touched it but have in actuality run the conditions of a single terminal.

The moral of this story is to run out pt problems and to patch up all ARC Breaks or you will not find and run any Rocks.

Probably the biggest holdup in all intensives is this fact of mis-definition of problems.

And in passing it may be remarked that given Clear Procedure the biggest delay on clearing is the failure of the auditor to run PT problems and ARC breaks. It might also be said that the preclear only protests violently about ARC breaks under one of the two following conditions: (I) the auditing is actually very bad and (2) the PT problem has not been run. As a rough rule of thumb it could be said that given well-intentioned auditing, a preclear only protests about ARC breaks when a PT problem has not been isolated and run. The problems connected with “being audited”, “being a preclear”, “the auditor”, have been rather uniformly overlooked by auditors, and cases which tend to hang up in processing are usually hung up on these.