Link to Checksheet for Level Two

Grade Two and The Grade Chart
The general direction of auditing is to raise the cause level and responsibility level of the pc. Along with that comes an increase in awareness. Increased awareness could be said to be the ultimate indicator of progress and product of auditing. The awareness scale can be found as an indicator scale along with the Grades on the Grade Chart (shown in table below).

The auditor's command makes pc look in her Bank and causes a restimulation. TA goes from 2.7 to 2.9. Pc gets an answer from the Bank, that she tells auditor. That causes a destimulation. TA goes from 2.9 to 2.6 in example. This is the basic action of removing  charge - one unit at the time.

What is most important as a practical measurement to an auditor is however Tone Arm action. Upward motion of the Tone Arm means pc contacted and restimulated some mass in his Bank. Downward motion of the Tone Arm means the mass was destimulated, reduced or As-is'ed by the pc. That is what you do as an auditor. An archeologist may use a teaspoon to remove the sand and dirt covering a treasure. The auditor uses one auditing command at the time to accomplish something similar. The Tone arm action is the session to session indicator of, that the pc is confronting and As-ising his Bank little by little. It tells the auditor, the process is working. When this happens the pc's case changes for the better. He will have cognitions, which are new awarenesses. 

Given enough Tone Arm action the pc will move up the awareness scale and any other scale of Standard Clearing Technology. He moves towards his native state of being a very powerful being. Our assumption is clearly, that Man is basically good and an able being. By removing charge, he regains these abilities gradually, which he basically had all along. The Grades are laid out in a way as to keep the Tone Arm moving on pc's. They are also laid out to cover the most important areas of the pc's life and his case. They are laid out in a natural sequence found by research and confirmed by experience. The Grades are laid out to tackle the next obstacle to higher awareness and spiritual freedom. Having tacked one obstacle the pc's attention and interest will quite naturally move onto the next one, which is now coming into view; that is the next Grade. It is like a journey. You get over one mountain and now you can see the next peak over there!  Now we have to get up to the top of  that one.

Basically Grade 0-4 cover the subject matters of the rudiments, but on a grander scale.

As you know from Level 0, the rudiments are the factors that can prevent effective auditing from taking place. A pc has to be in-session (interested in his own case and willing to talk to the auditor) for auditing to work. We had the data from 'How to Fly the Rudiments':

In 'Auditors Rights' it states:

"A pc to run well has to have his 'Rudiments In'. It is a major auditing error to audit a pc on something else if his ruds are out." and, "An auditor should never begin a Major Action on a pc not set up for it."

What is said about auditing and Major Action in these quotes could be said to hold true for life as well. Life and successful living is being simulated in auditing you could say. If a person 'has his rudiments in solid' on life he is more likely to enjoy life and succeed.

About Grades
On the Recall Grade the pc became able to contact his Bank and mental image pictures and started to look at them and handle them from a causative point of view.

On Grade Zero, communication, the pc became able to be there and communicate. Since communication is necessary to any successful living, and auditing as well, it was addressed early on. Communication is an undercut to handling rudiments, be it problems, upsets or withholds. Increasing ones ability and desire to communicate is of course one first important step in handling withholds as well.

On Grade One, Problems, we looked at problems and took a good look at the mechanisms behind confusions and problems to a point where the pc was able to see the source of his problems and make them vanish.

On Grade Two we are taking a look at overts and withholds (O/W). To clear up overts and withholds is an important step as these things could be said and understood to be behind any out rudiment phenomena.

On Grade Three we look at upsets. We clear up past upsets and relationships gone bad. This corresponds to the ARC break rudiment.

On Grade Four we look at pc's computations. We are inspecting aberrated ideas and considerations the pc makes himself. It's a type of 'crooked ideas' that restimulated his Bank in the first place and kept it in place. One important type of aberrated computations we will find and inspect is the so-called Service Facsimile. It's a computation that makes the pc feel 'I am right and others wrong' in an aberrated way.

(Guided Tour - Level 2)

On Grade 2 we audit Overts and Withholds. This is done in such a way to make the pc take responsibility for such acts and thus be able to As-is them; it enables him to clean up bad consequences from past overts and withholds. The ability attained from Grade 2 is, "Freedom from hostilities and sufferings in life".

One thing that would be an enemy of pc progress would be to audit overts and withholds in such a way as to make the pc feel accused or guilty. It violates Auditors Code.

Accusation and overwhelm does not work.     It violates just about all basic principles of auditing.   Pulling overts under Auditors Code and have  pc take responsibility for them do work.

If you look at the tone scale you will find a series of well known emotions on it: Shame, Blame and Regret. You will find these emotions in the sub-zero area. This is below apathy (+0.05) and failure (0.0).

You find Shame at -0.2. Blame at -1.0 and Regret at -1.3.
That these well known emotions actually are in the sub-zero area tells us, that auditing overts and withholds successfully is a delicate matter. It takes skill and the right technique. Just to go ahead and accuse the pc would not make him better, but worse. It wouldn't make him take responsibility, but make him cringe and feel embarrassed and guilty and avoid the auditing situation altogether. Thus handling overts and withholds on a pc takes a gradient approach by an auditor who knows what he is doing.

The gradient approach to this actually already started very early on in the pc's auditing. Let us examine the different techniques in raising the pc's cause level and how it ties in with overts and withholds.

ITSA. The first step would be to have the pc discuss his or her feeling of guilt in himself with little or no auditor direction. This you will find is taking place on Grade 0 and Grade 1. It is not looked for or directly intended, but it is bound to come up in session now and then or the pc wouldn't be in-session; it is dealt with as part of any auditing.

The next level would be to have the pc discuss his or her guilt feelings about others in a similar manner.

Since the Grades below 2 do not push the pc in any such direction, the pc can bring it up at any given moment and the auditor is just there to listen to it and acknowledge and possibly handle it as an out rudiment.

Flying of the rudiments, as in beginning of each session, is a method by which the auditor would pick up any such feelings and deal with them in the pc without being accusative. Any pushing the pc down towards Shame, Blame and Regret would be an invalidation under the Auditors Code; it would be harmful. But the pc may bring it up and express any such emotions or incidents at different points and the auditor would deal with it as an origination or out rudiment at that point. If it was a straight answer to the process he would simply acknowledge it and go on with the process as it should take care of it.

Grade Two
When we come to Grade 2 the situation has however changed. The pc should already have a number of wins and many cognitions about himself, his life and livingness. His cause level has been brought up considerably.

On this background we can approach the subject of cause in a more direct manner. We are up to the next level here.

You will find the level 2 processes on a gradient make the pc take more responsibility for his overts and withholds. This is done by repetitive processes and repetitive style processes. Typical questions are:

"What have you done?", "What haven't you done?", "What have you withheld?".  Such types of questions are run on a gradient of responsibility and on many different subjects, persons and terminals in pc's life. Of course, we can't summarize all the aspects of Grade 2 in three commands. But when you get to study the actual processes and run them, you will see how they tie in with this general concept.

Confessional Processing
The next level of handling the pc's cause level is attained by Confessional auditing.

In Confessionals you use prepared forms of questions addressing a certain area of the pc's life and activities. The questions are a list of possible overts pertaining to the pc, like jobs he has held, relationships, etc. - any particular group, interest and dynamic of the pc and his activities in that area. The questions can be very detailed and disrespectful. You need to have a pc, who has already had good case gains or he wouldn't be able to cope with these types of questions.

It also takes a new skill level on the part of the auditor to do confessionals successfully.

But despite the disrespectful and hard nosed appearance, confessional auditing still is auditing. Done right, it is a very effective way to raise the pc's cause level. It will increase his reach and communication level as well; even his perception, like sight, hearing, etc. may improve.

At level 4 we take up another aspect of O/Ws. That is under the heading of Justifications. This is part of the non-survival computations and considerations we take up on this level. A Justification is an explaining away of wrong conduct. When most explanations, no matter how far fetched, seem perfectly right to the person making them, it is a Justification. It is an attempt to assert self-rightness and other-wrongness. The central question regarding Justifications would be, 'why something wasn't an overt'. This of course may come up at other times, but at level 4 we take on the subject of Justifications head on as part of irrational or non-survival computations and considerations.

As the pc's responsibility level is coming up, more and more overts and withholds will come to view that need to be 'pulled' meaning addressed, questioned, confronted and As-is'ed. This means, that auditing overts and withholds is needed at different levels in order to get the pc's 'rudiments in with a bang'. You can still not expect a pc on Grade 2 to be able to see - let alone take responsibility for - any and all bad deeds he may have done since the beginning of time.

Responsibility and O/Ws
The realization that one has really done something is a return of responsibility. The hardest thing to take responsibility for is of course the bad deeds one has done. On Grade 2 and in confessional auditing overts and withholds are addressed directly and the pc is made to take responsibility even for the bad things he has done.

Most of the techniques described in the following applies mainly to confessional auditing. They would not be appropriate to the repetitive style auditing of Grade 2 itself. You wouldn't start on using confessional style techniques on a repetitive process. But it does come into play when we talk session rudiments. The student also needs to have a better understanding of overts and withholds and the mechanisms of the mind coming into play. But keep in mind, repetitive processes are repetitive processes and they are done repetitive style, where the auditor is 'muzzled'. A muzzle being a leather device you typically put over a dogs snout, so he can't bite or eat. Repetitive or muzzled auditing is using TR-0 to 4 and nothing else. TR-3 (repetitive command) is by the book as well as the other TRs.

The theory of overts and withholds and how it works in auditing is however valid for repetitive auditing as well as for Confessionals. But since Confessional auditing  is somewhat like detective work and an investigation as much as auditing, we often go into explaining the mechanisms of overts and withholds by using examples from Confessional auditing.

Link to Checksheet for Level Two