Donald Kean
Patron
I am a golden boy who fell into the jaws of scientology over sixty years ago, long before other pyscho-religious movements gouged on mental health in urban surroundings. People generally lived without alternatives other than what was traditionally available.
No matter what day or age we live in, we can end up in places we never wanted to be. As a teenager I was trapped inside life’s potty while showers of whatever rained from above. Being from a dysfunctional family I didn’t finish my education. I left school at fourteen to work in a factory and went to night school to get an apprenticeship to boiler making.
I was never cut out for heavy industry. It was an emotional thing; I wanted to reach out to my father who worked in the trade. I failed to make the connection and struggled with the work. I saved my small wages for my family to escape my abusive father while serving an apprenticeship. I never cared for working with the emotionless weight of industrial steel but kept at it for I was told I needed trade skills for my future.
I had turned eighteen when my mom showed me an ad for a communication course in the local newspaper. I said ‘nah’ but wore a polka dot bow tie when I stepped into the office next day. I don’t know why because I didn’t like bow ties. I suppose I was trying to be a normal person in a crazy world or perhaps the other way around.
The free communication course promised more than paddling through the backwaters of society. I was like an extra in a B grade movie. Would this place turn on my light as a star and I get the leading role at last? Religious tell of changes made by divine means. I tried religion but it didn’t work. I had nothing to have faith in or for, god help me.
The weekly course told me I would soon be where everything happens for the better. I joined the co-audit group afterwards for I couldn’t afford to go private. We sat in a row of wooden chairs facing each other and asked questions like, “Who would you like to be?” alternated with “Who would you rather not be?”
That soon stopped because they said people were running in valence. I’m still not sure what that means. The Org used it for stopping processes and then going onto others to reputedly do the same things but with promises of better results at greater cost. That made the beginnings of doubt about what was happening and where I went with it.
I made some progress as I became more outgoing but not more successful. I got clearer in thinking but not any smarter. I was the youngest on the course and most in need. Mixing with more mature personality problems made some changes. I had suffered suppression of communication when younger and experienced nervous difficulties when trying hold a conversation in the present moment.
I thought to fight was wrong. We talk over our troubles to get better. I was no fighter or talker by a country mile. Feelings of nonviolence in me had been discouraged. My father had left home to defeat the beast of war and came back with bad memories and worse habits. He helped win the peace, but not within himself.
A tsunami of confusion thundered across the world as aftershock to world war. Even after over a decade of peace old limits became thrown aside. Young people wore happy days clothes at the end of the rock and rolling fifties as greater changes prepared to take place. We lived in world of change without knowing how to change ourselves. Radical ideas and situations arose to overwhelm our minds. False promises like scientology grew.
I supported scientology views before the wisdom of hindsight. Scientology taught of life in a general way, but it was me who made the changes to save myself. Going to a center and even having treatment by them doesn't make you a scientologist any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
No matter what day or age we live in, we can end up in places we never wanted to be. As a teenager I was trapped inside life’s potty while showers of whatever rained from above. Being from a dysfunctional family I didn’t finish my education. I left school at fourteen to work in a factory and went to night school to get an apprenticeship to boiler making.
I was never cut out for heavy industry. It was an emotional thing; I wanted to reach out to my father who worked in the trade. I failed to make the connection and struggled with the work. I saved my small wages for my family to escape my abusive father while serving an apprenticeship. I never cared for working with the emotionless weight of industrial steel but kept at it for I was told I needed trade skills for my future.
I had turned eighteen when my mom showed me an ad for a communication course in the local newspaper. I said ‘nah’ but wore a polka dot bow tie when I stepped into the office next day. I don’t know why because I didn’t like bow ties. I suppose I was trying to be a normal person in a crazy world or perhaps the other way around.
The free communication course promised more than paddling through the backwaters of society. I was like an extra in a B grade movie. Would this place turn on my light as a star and I get the leading role at last? Religious tell of changes made by divine means. I tried religion but it didn’t work. I had nothing to have faith in or for, god help me.
The weekly course told me I would soon be where everything happens for the better. I joined the co-audit group afterwards for I couldn’t afford to go private. We sat in a row of wooden chairs facing each other and asked questions like, “Who would you like to be?” alternated with “Who would you rather not be?”
That soon stopped because they said people were running in valence. I’m still not sure what that means. The Org used it for stopping processes and then going onto others to reputedly do the same things but with promises of better results at greater cost. That made the beginnings of doubt about what was happening and where I went with it.
I made some progress as I became more outgoing but not more successful. I got clearer in thinking but not any smarter. I was the youngest on the course and most in need. Mixing with more mature personality problems made some changes. I had suffered suppression of communication when younger and experienced nervous difficulties when trying hold a conversation in the present moment.
I thought to fight was wrong. We talk over our troubles to get better. I was no fighter or talker by a country mile. Feelings of nonviolence in me had been discouraged. My father had left home to defeat the beast of war and came back with bad memories and worse habits. He helped win the peace, but not within himself.
A tsunami of confusion thundered across the world as aftershock to world war. Even after over a decade of peace old limits became thrown aside. Young people wore happy days clothes at the end of the rock and rolling fifties as greater changes prepared to take place. We lived in world of change without knowing how to change ourselves. Radical ideas and situations arose to overwhelm our minds. False promises like scientology grew.
I supported scientology views before the wisdom of hindsight. Scientology taught of life in a general way, but it was me who made the changes to save myself. Going to a center and even having treatment by them doesn't make you a scientologist any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
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