Auditing
In order to understand the whole Scn and CoS experience, you have to get a real handle on the subject of auditing. People who have not experienced it, either giving or receiving, tend to have a very unrealistic idea of what it is like.
The first thing to understand is that it is totally, completely different from the whole of the rest of the Scn or CoS experience. Most of the latter is completely at odds with the auditing side, and is a main part of the reason that the FZ tends to be made up of auditors, not excecs. In fact the contrast is so very marked that it is in itself a very interesting phenomenon.
Still, to answer your questions:
Basically, once you entered the Church- what in your previous life changed?
The first auditing I ever got was a "touch assist", a very basic procedure, because I was suffereing from a tooth abscess. If you haven't had one of these, feel lucky - they are Extremely Painful! I had previously suffered through the results of English dentisrty on one, and had been in pain for a year as a result; so I knew what this was going to be like. The touch assist completely, and I mean completely, got rid of the pain. I was most surprised, and very impressed.
Later, I swapped what are called Objective processes with other people, and experienced the phenomenon called "exteriorization", the overwhelming impression that one is outside of one's body. This too was a very impressive experience - the more so because of the obvious effect on another person when you exteriorized them.
These experiences, along with others, convinced me that I was in fact a spiritual, rather than a purely physical, being.
What was your auditing experience like?
I did a lot of co-auditing, I got a bunch of set up auditing, and then at Flag I got a lot of review and sec check auditing associated with OTVII. I also did a lot of auditing on others at AOLA and ASHO, and of course did a lot of solo too.
Generally, except the Flag Sec-Checking, I enjoyed it all, and got lots of realizations, epiphanies, whatever you want to call it, out of it. My PC's (the people I auditited) by and large seemed to get a lot out of it too.
One example of a pc I audited was a person who had never had any kind of a love relationship in their entire life. (I will call the person "they" so as to disguise any identification). They didn't much like this, but they thought that that was the way things were, and had basically given up, after trying hetero and homo-sexual lovers. I studied the folder, and realized that they were suffering, probably, from a particular thing (not identified so as not to key them in if they happen to be reading this!), and so c/sed (wrote out instructions) to ask about this (among other things, in case that wasn't it). Sure enough, I'd nailed it, and after 20 minutes or so they were not only blown out (deliriously happy, walking on air) but went off and got married a few months later. I hope that worked out!
Generally, there is nothing better than sorting out a person, changing their life from bleagh to enthusiastic.
On the other hand, endless sec-checking at Flag (this is auditing designed to weed out objectionable people) was the opposite. Pointless, in fact degrading, and miserable.
I'm the person who talks at the start of the recent TV program about the Freezone - and about the only thing they left in the show was my comment that auditing is great stuff if it is done *for* the pc, not for the organization.
What level were you able to attain?
I was on OTVII (solo NOTs), and was a permanent Class VI FPRD auditor, with lots of OT review experience.
Some people say there are many negatives that go along with auditing- would you agree, or disagree?
There are some. In the HGC there is a lot of emphasis on production - getting hours. This goes against thoroughness in that auditors have to wing it too much, rather than spend real time studying folders and figuring out what to do next. On the other hand, auditing is so expensive in the HGC that people want to minimise what they do there, rather than milking things for all they are worth. The best thing to do is to co-audit your way up in a leisurely fashion. I did hundreds of hours of FPRD in this fashion.
The worst thing is the NAY sec checking. NAY stands for "I'm Not Auditing You", which is what you tell the PC when you are about to ask him about bad stuff he's done, and that you are going to tell the ethics officer so he can be keyed back into it all when you've done keying him out. Endless digging for overts and withholds, and always with a slant that you are judged according to how the Church thinks. Alan Waters has written eloquently on how bad this is. It was almost funny how all the pre-OTs in the Flag OTVII HGC were pretending to be cheerful while they were waiting for yet another bloody sec check. It is also "out-tech", that is, technically incorrect, to do that amongst other major actions such as solo NOTs, and is IMO one of the main reasons people take forever on that level and don't get any wins on it.
Hope this helps.
If you don't understand just how good auditing can be, how liberating, energizing, and freeing it can be, you won't have a clue why people stay in and support the CoS. It isn't that they are brainwashed, or willing or unwilling slaves - it is that the auditing is so very good that pretty much anything is tolerable if it means they can get more of it, and make it OK for others to get it.
Roland