It was the fall of 1999, I had gotten out of the military a few months before, and spent the summer of 1999 living by the beach in San Diego. For those that don't know, living by the beach in San Diego for a 23 year old was a pretty good time. Lots of party's, sun, and girlfriends. I spent the summer living pretty much off savings going to a party every night, and working on my tan, well eventually the money started to run out, and I needed a job and to start my career. I found a job in the Bay area, and had to move. I ended up moving to my new job, and was very broke, that I needed to take an unsecured loan out just to have enough to rent an apartment. I started my new job, but the pay would not start coming for at least a couple weeks. My home at that time, consisted of a chair that I bought from salvation army, a TV stand and a TV. I slept on the floor for the most part, as most of my belongings I had to sell in San Diego to have some cash. Honestly, I was kind of depressed, I was in a new town with no friends, money, and an uncertain future. One night, I heard a knock on my door, I was fairly lonely, and kind of excited that someone was at the door, even if it was the Jehova's Witnesses. I went to open the door, and a cute women, around the same age as me, was there. We started talking, and she was telling me she was selling Dianetics for 5 dollars, and along with the book I could get a free personality test that was a 150 dollar value, she asked me if I had anything in my life I wanted to change, I responded that I wanted to be happier, and she told me the book had the answers, and even showed me an area in the book where I can read about it. I had never heard of Dianetics at that time, and it did say it was a bestseller. I reached in my pocket, and all I had left, was 6 dollars and change, and maybe 10 dollars in the bank. I figured, why not this could be a life changing book, and handed over the 5 dollars, little did I know that at that moment it was going to be life changing book. When she left I looked at the book, and the personality test, I was kind of interested to see what my personality was, and figured I would mail it off sometime. The book and the test went on my counter, with the intention to fill it out when I got around to it...
I had finally got paid, and things were looking up, I even got a couch. The Dianetics book, and test hadn't moved from my counter in about a week. But I had decided to send off the test, I answered all the questions truthfully, it was long but the questions were kind of interesting, and mailed it off. A week had passed, and my pager all of the sudden got a weird number I never recognized. Back then I didn't have a cell phone, but a pager that was issued through work. I was kind of excited as I was having a hard time meeting new friends at my new town, so I immediately returned the call at a payphone. I called and the receptionist said something I didn't understand, probably "Church of Scientology" but at that time I had never heard of Scientology, I replied that someone from this number paged me, "oh, yeah" the guy replied in a fairly joyful manner, and I got patched to the 6A sec. She called my name out, and I was like yeah, and she told me how excited she was to hear from me, and that my test results were in, and I happened to be a really popular person around there, she asked me when I can come in and get my results, as its pretty exciting, I was kind of intrigued and a little bit excited myself. We made an appointment for 2 nights later I wrote down the address and she gave me directions, and it was settled.
I did not want to be late for my appointment, so the next day I went out to find where I was going, I drove by the building where I was supposed to go, it was labeled "Church of Scientology" and there was also a "Hubbard Dianetics Foundation" sign. I didn't think much, but I got home and read some of the book. I read about the state of clear, and by the way the lady was reacting, I was naive enough, to think that I would possibly be clear from my personality test results.
The next night, I made my appointment right on time, the woman came out, and greeted me effusively. I was kind of taken back by the greeting, and kind of felt good about it. She took me in the back, and told me my results were still printing out, but I could watch a movie before I got my results. I didn't mind, perhaps it would answer where I was, there was a bunch of weird symbols, books, posters, that were quite interesting. The film was "Orientation". I actually didn't mind the film, of course the part that got me, was the end where it says you can jump off a bridge. As soon the film was over, the lady greeted me, and took me to my results. Most everything on my test was pretty low, with the exception of one of the points where very high. She explained it to me, and I thought it was exactly the way I am, I was impressed. I conducted an interview, and I did have a security clearance, so I was an illegal PC right away, but I was able to sign up for courses. I got routed to the registrar. We talked, and she was quite attractive and my age, so I listened to what she had to say, hoping in the back of my mind she would ask me out for a drink after(she didn't) she asked me, what exactly would make my life better. Without hesitation, I answered "Money" kind of a superficial thing to say, but I was having some financial issues, and that would have taken alot of stress off. She introduced the PE 1 course to me, and told me this course may be able to help, since it was only 38 dollars, I thought "why not". So I signed up. I got routed to the Basic course, my thinking was it was going to be someone teaching me like a classroom. I routed to the course supervisor. He was a fairly good guy, he asked my schedule, I could only go on course 3-4 days a week, since I worked 12 hour days when I had to work, it seemed like a problem for him, but it would have to do. as he was doing other administration on the routing form, I decided to flip through my new book I got, he got a little bit cross with me, and explained that I was not to jump ahead. I was kind of confused, but thought "whatever, its the way they teach" He also explained not going by a word I didn't understand, and how I must have a dictionary while I study. It was a little weird, as I never had one in school, but again I wasn't going to challenge his rules. By the time I got all the routing in done, the night was completed, and course was over, I never got started on course that night, but I wasn't really expecting to get started anyway. I was scheduled to go onto course next day, and I left for the night. At that point, my foot was really in the door, and I was on my way to becoming a Scientologist...
More to come later...
I had finally got paid, and things were looking up, I even got a couch. The Dianetics book, and test hadn't moved from my counter in about a week. But I had decided to send off the test, I answered all the questions truthfully, it was long but the questions were kind of interesting, and mailed it off. A week had passed, and my pager all of the sudden got a weird number I never recognized. Back then I didn't have a cell phone, but a pager that was issued through work. I was kind of excited as I was having a hard time meeting new friends at my new town, so I immediately returned the call at a payphone. I called and the receptionist said something I didn't understand, probably "Church of Scientology" but at that time I had never heard of Scientology, I replied that someone from this number paged me, "oh, yeah" the guy replied in a fairly joyful manner, and I got patched to the 6A sec. She called my name out, and I was like yeah, and she told me how excited she was to hear from me, and that my test results were in, and I happened to be a really popular person around there, she asked me when I can come in and get my results, as its pretty exciting, I was kind of intrigued and a little bit excited myself. We made an appointment for 2 nights later I wrote down the address and she gave me directions, and it was settled.
I did not want to be late for my appointment, so the next day I went out to find where I was going, I drove by the building where I was supposed to go, it was labeled "Church of Scientology" and there was also a "Hubbard Dianetics Foundation" sign. I didn't think much, but I got home and read some of the book. I read about the state of clear, and by the way the lady was reacting, I was naive enough, to think that I would possibly be clear from my personality test results.
The next night, I made my appointment right on time, the woman came out, and greeted me effusively. I was kind of taken back by the greeting, and kind of felt good about it. She took me in the back, and told me my results were still printing out, but I could watch a movie before I got my results. I didn't mind, perhaps it would answer where I was, there was a bunch of weird symbols, books, posters, that were quite interesting. The film was "Orientation". I actually didn't mind the film, of course the part that got me, was the end where it says you can jump off a bridge. As soon the film was over, the lady greeted me, and took me to my results. Most everything on my test was pretty low, with the exception of one of the points where very high. She explained it to me, and I thought it was exactly the way I am, I was impressed. I conducted an interview, and I did have a security clearance, so I was an illegal PC right away, but I was able to sign up for courses. I got routed to the registrar. We talked, and she was quite attractive and my age, so I listened to what she had to say, hoping in the back of my mind she would ask me out for a drink after(she didn't) she asked me, what exactly would make my life better. Without hesitation, I answered "Money" kind of a superficial thing to say, but I was having some financial issues, and that would have taken alot of stress off. She introduced the PE 1 course to me, and told me this course may be able to help, since it was only 38 dollars, I thought "why not". So I signed up. I got routed to the Basic course, my thinking was it was going to be someone teaching me like a classroom. I routed to the course supervisor. He was a fairly good guy, he asked my schedule, I could only go on course 3-4 days a week, since I worked 12 hour days when I had to work, it seemed like a problem for him, but it would have to do. as he was doing other administration on the routing form, I decided to flip through my new book I got, he got a little bit cross with me, and explained that I was not to jump ahead. I was kind of confused, but thought "whatever, its the way they teach" He also explained not going by a word I didn't understand, and how I must have a dictionary while I study. It was a little weird, as I never had one in school, but again I wasn't going to challenge his rules. By the time I got all the routing in done, the night was completed, and course was over, I never got started on course that night, but I wasn't really expecting to get started anyway. I was scheduled to go onto course next day, and I left for the night. At that point, my foot was really in the door, and I was on my way to becoming a Scientologist...
More to come later...
