Life as a new mission public - the making of a Scientologist.
Okay, I left off my story being totally blown out – exterior and oh so happy. Well, that was pretty short-lived. It was such a big change and such a great feeling – from being near the bottom all the way out the top. Now that I had a taste of how good I could feel I wanted it all the time. But that would not quite be the case.
I continued with my objective auditing and even though I never got that blown away again, I guess I did okay. I’ll just summarize some things that I remember; my pre-staff days in the mission. (Later I joined staff at the class V org about 40 miles away.) This was from late '79 to '81-ish.
My introduction to really being OT.
I remember talking to this one guy who was married with twin baby girls and we were standing in the mission during a break and got to talking. He was always very nice and very happy. I really liked him. This one time he said he was standing on his front porch at home right now as we spoke here in the mission. He had a big smile on his face. Of course he meant he was exterior and had full perceptions and was visiting his wife and kids. To this day I don’t know if he was actually able to do something like that, thought he was doing it or was just a nut. But it sure got me thinking…
What I would do as an OT
If I got that ability – to be anywhere fully aware of what was going on and still be able to run my body – wow. I could go to concerts for free and even be on stage! I could go to baseball games, football games – you name it - and be on the field. All from the comfort of my air conditioned bedroom. And then I had the greatest thought ever – I could go to women’s locker rooms. I could go to Hawaii , Antarctica and a health club in Sweden all in one night. Who needs TV or a life, I could be anywhere, any time. Oh, I want those abilities!
Cookies or Auditing?
I was working at a grocery store making around $7 an hour, living at home saving up my money to buy my Life Repair. I don’t remember how much it was but I’m thinking, in 1980, it was around $2500 for an intensive or two. I didn’t have any credit cards so I had to save for it. That was a lot of money for me. An awful lot of money. I remember going to the store to buy some groceries and looking at a $2 bag of cookies thinking – nah, that’ll get me about 30 seconds in session. I downgraded in cars – from a five year old Ford Pinto – to a twelve year old Ford Falcon. I got about a $1000 out of that towards my auditing. Talk about sad - "downgrading" from a Ford Pinto!
I get to hold the cans for some real auditing!
I finally paid for my Life Repair and was going to get some real auditing. I got the mission holder’s wife as my auditor. Very intimidating. She was an OT VII and a class VIII auditor. I know she could read my mind. Well, I don’t know what we were running but she just had to pull withholds – secrets. You know, I was thinking of stuff like what I’d be doing with my body if I was exterior looking at some naked ladies or something. Thinking of pooping and farting and such. Well, I swear she turned her little desk lamp to shine in my face (maybe not but seemed like it) and had this psychotic evil Nazi look on her face demanding my withholds. “C’mon, out with it! What have you done!!??” And not just things I was just thinking of – but horrible things she knew I had actually done. Well, other than embarrassing things, being a 19 year old, that’s all I had; nothing else. You’d think she could just read my mind and know I wasn’t hiding anything or lying to her. Gee, maybe I was and I just didn’t know or something. I must have had some deep secret I was holding back that only she and the emeter knew. I must be such a bad and messed up person to not be able to think of anything really bad that I had done. (
can you say a new form of introversion??) It was so horrible and I was so freaked out – what did the Gestapo want? And I was paying a fortune for this. I just want a bag of cookies and eat them in my room. And I want to be exterior again. Well, I red-tagged after this engramic session with a Class VIII auditor. She insisted I went back in session that very minute. I went back in, BS’ed about something and made sure I seemed happy enough at the examiner again. I became a seasoned Scientologist that night!
The newest degraded being gets an auditor demotion
Fortunately, they switched me to another auditor. I guess I just couldn’t “have” a CLVIII auditor. The new auditor was a very nice, very warm person and I actually ended up doing pretty good with my Life Repair. I did feel better about a lot of things. But I still wasn’t exterior again! And I did have bad headaches and a bunch of alarms and think-think-think was still going on in my head. Just not quite as bad – but still not comfortable.
In all fairness, I did get some case gain from the CLVIII auditor - a few loose thetans that were hanging around or in me were certainly scared away!
That session with that wonderful CLVIII auditor bothered me for a long time. It wasn’t until about two years after that session that I ran into the nice auditor at the 40 mile away Org. I had asked about some folks in the mission, including the Class 8 and she said really casual like, “oh, she was Declared a long time ago”. If I was in a movie, I would have turned right to the camera with one of those looks on face like, “why didn’t any one bother to tell me this?” :confused2:
But was I pissed off that I had a horrible session with a mean SP and should have gotten my money back (or hours of credit) – for that session and the repair sessions that I needed from that horrible session later? No, I was just so happy to find out it wasn’t me that was so bad – it was that ex-class 8! I was so relieved to hear that. But why couldn’t someone have told me this earlier?! There was some more botched up auditing by then, too. No point to go into details. As long as the Church of Scientology gets rewarded for delivering bad auditing (the poor PC
buys more auditing to fix it), that's what they will deliver.
That's about it for now on being a new public at a mission. Sorry I can't say which mission or Org yet; once I get my repayment back I will. This covered about a year and a half. I know there's more stories but these were the main points I can think of. Next, I'll discuss my decision and being on staff at a class V org. Thanks for listening.