The recognition of prior learning (RPL) has been a part of adult education policy and practice for a long time, but in different ways and in different times and places. In Sweden, RPL has been an explicit part of the policy since 1996. This policy analysis starts with the current Swedish policy concerning RPL. The figures of thought expressed in official policy texts are traced in, and compared to what is expressed in, the (discursive) practice of a case of local policy and development initiatives. The objective of the analysis is to see how the policy in official texts is reproduced and transformed at the local level. The theoretical starting point is the Foucauldian concept of "governmentality", and RPL is seen as a technique for governing adult education, the adult learner and also adult learning. The analysis focuses particularly on the governing of adult education, expressed in the "salvation narrative" of RPL, and in ideas of what RPL is and how it should be organised. Indirect as well as direct techniques of governing are identified in the governing of and through RPL.