scooterstory

[scooter]

This is the start of my story - it'll cover the thirty-odd (and they were thirty ODD) years of my involvment with the Co$. Hope you like the first installment.

Introduction

I found the diary of Albert Speer in the local library and began to read it. He was Hitler’s architect and had a close personal relationship with one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest monsters. Speer wrote the diary during the twenty years he spent in prison for war crimes, written secretly on toilet paper and smuggled out of the jail he was kept in. It was the story of a man with dreams of turning his country into something beautiful by creating the world’s most spectacular urban landscapes full of gardens, lakes, forests, beautiful buildings and sculptures, long wide avenues and so on and who got subverted into being a part of something indescribably evil and then who began to see just how misled he’d been and how wrong his actions were. He wasn’t a bad man, but he had done some very bad things that he slowly began to take some responsibility for. He was the only Nazi at the War Crimes trials who admitted responsibility for his part in the horrors – he was genuinely remorseful. The parallels with what my life had been for the last 30 or so years were frightening. “Take a deep breath and feel dizzy with terror” type of frightening. “Not wanting to look but being unable to look away” type of frightening. Hence the title of this story. I’m not pointing out anyone here and saying “This is the devil – kill him.” It’s just a story of how I and a lot of people who became my friends became entangled in something I finally came to see was so wrong yet I thought it was so right.

I first came in direct contact with Scientology in February 1979. Until October 2008, I’d been active as a Scientology staff member or worked in some of the Scientology “Social Betterment” activities such as Narconon. Scientology’s drug rehab program. I’ve trained extensively in the time, completing 80 courses on the subject. I’ve added a list of these at the end.

There are a lot of good things about Scientology. I’ve tried to include these in my story so that you get a balanced view of the subject. As I said, I’m not interested in blaming anyone or anything for my time spent in Scientology. I just don’t want anyone else going through the sufferings and insanities that I encountered in my journey – the bad has far outweighed the good.

I’ve just detailed as much as I can so that you can judge for yourself what to think. Especially in the later years, I have referred to my extensive diaries and other notes taken at the time to be as accurate as I can


Before the Start

I had a pretty good upbringing. Part of a large Christian family, youngest of six. Did well at school, above-average intelligence and found school generally easy and enjoyed learning. Enjoyed music and painting and writing and bird-watching and surfing and playing football and growing orchids and breeding frogs and fish.

Found myself at a loose end with no goals in life as I got older and got into drugs at the age of 14 and life began to disintergrate. Drifted into university to fail at Biology and fell into a clerical job with the Post Office. More drugs and alcohol. Several attempts to get away from this and get me back but every time I’d just get back on.

Could drink 24 cans of beer at a party and happily deny I was an alcoholic. Grew some of the strongest MJ anyone had ever smoked and partied on while those around me crashed in a stupor. Screwed my life up to the point I could barely hold down a labouring job. Flirted with heroin. Did plenty of other drugs like speed and LSD. Stopped surfing. Stopped painting. Stopped playing soccer.

Despite all of this, thought it was all fine but knew deep down it wasn’t. Was heading further and further down the black hole and knew of no way to climb back out again, or even if there were a way to regain what I’d lost already and could see myself losing in the near future. Totally powerless over what I was doing and where I was heading.

First Contact

Had some vague beliefs in being a spiritual being and had long abandoned Christianity but had gotten interested in Buddhism and had read a bit about it and apathetically followed what I understood of its philosophy. That is, when I wasn’t too out of it from whatever cocktail of chemicals I was currently on. Was 22, doing LSD every fortnight and digging holes by the roadside for a living. Got out of the truck one day to catch a train home where I normally wouldn’t have gotten out of the truck and had a young guy with a clipboard ask me if I’d do a survey. I agreed, and soon found myself in a rather dilapidated building answering a “Personality Test” and then having a girl about my age called Kerri telling me all about myself, especially the non-complimentary bits. Rubbed my nose in my wasted life and told me I needed to change. She asked me if I was doing drugs at all and I said yeah, just finished a fridgeload of acid and still had some great homegrown MJ and no I hadn’t done heroin for a while – was trying to stay away from that and she interrupted my ramble and told me to “knock of the drugs and do the ‘auditing’ “ - I think I passed over $30 for some “co-audit” stuff and came back for the next few nights to see if this stuff worked. Everyone there seemed to be my age or not much older and there was a nice feel to the place. Found myself sitting with a stranger asking the same set of questions over and over and then the stranger suddenly brightened up and had some really cool thoughts about his life. He did the same thing for me and I thought it was pretty cool too. After four nights of this, I suddenly realized that I’d been hiding behind drugs and I didn’t need to – I could sort out my own problems without the help of anyone or anything. From that day to this, I’ve not touched heroin, hash, MJ, speed, acid or anything else. I kept smoking cigarettes for quite a few years and even had the odd drink until 15 years after this but my life had changed totally at that point and I felt amazing. I wanted to paint again, I wanted to write stories and songs again. Life became fun again without a chemical assist. I played soccer again, this time without being stoned. But I couldn’t tell my family and friends what had caused all this – it was Scientology and it was at best “weird.”

I was taken to see some guy who told me I’d make a great “auditor” and I could buy this course and get another one for free if I gave him a few hundred dollars (I think it was about $600 at the time). I easily had that in my bank account so I paid up. I could do more of this auditing stuff on others and get them to do it on me. But this new auditing was even better than what I’d been doing! More powerful! Wow! Life was looking great!

 

[Tim Skog]

Scooter,

Your story is interesting and I look forward to the rest of it.

 

[degraded being]

This part, snipped from your story, sounds wonderful.

"Enjoyed music and painting and writing and bird-watching and surfing and playing football and growing orchids and breeding frogs and fish."

Don't know how you could handle all the booze and drugs,
my system (body) could only deal with very moderate amounts. Looking forward to the next installment

 

[HappyGirl]

I had to laugh when you talked about working at "the Post Office. More drugs and alcohol..." I also worked at the Post Office here in the U.S., with young people, old people, all different races, and the drugs! We were all working stoned out of our minds, and then would go home to a co-workers house to get stoned all night. Ah, those were the days.

Enjoying your story. Continue.

 

[Carmel]

Much reality with a lot of this - am lookin' forward to the point where the story really starts though! Don't take too long now, ya hear!

 

[scooter]

All right - thanks for the encouragement and feedback so far.

DB, i have no idea how I could take so many drugs and stay alive, let alone go to work. I guess it was just part of the culture at the time to binge as hard as possible on whatever was available - a lot of my friends were doing the same thing that I did. We'd regularly have bong competions, where the last one still awake won.

And Happy Girl, it does seem to be a post office thing - we used to hit the pub at lunchtime then the roof for a smoke at afternoon tea - strange days indeed!

Anyway, here's the next installment.

First Study of the Subject

I got taken to the “Courseroom” on the second floor of the building – I’d never been there before. I was introduced to this guy called Allen Wright who was the “Course Supervisor” who told me I HAD to be on time for course, don’t talk to anyone but him or one of the other staff when studying, I HAD to be on time, look up any words I didn’t understand by using a dictionary and I HAD to be on time. I don’t think he expected me to stay long – I was a scruffy, long-haired, bearded labourer who always wore old shorts with holes in them and a ragged T-shirt and NEVER wore shoes. I spent the night reading this weird thing called “Keeping Scientology Working” and getting “checkouts’ where the supervisor asked me for definitions of words from it and he’d flunk me and tell me to look it up in the dictionary and then re-study this thing. At the end of that night, he got some of the students to give “wins” and everyone clapped them. I went along with this – seemed a bit weird but hey, so was I and who was I to judge someone else. Then the whole class stood up and clapped this big picture of L Ron Hubbard at the end of the room. I remember thinking this was like Communist China where they clapped Chairman Mao’s picture but hey, I’ll go along with it. So I stood and clapped too. Then I went and caught the train home, trying to digest it all. It was weird but I’d wait it out and see how it was going to go.

After a few nights of this, another “new” student I’d befriended by the name of Jeanette asked me if anyone was trying to get me to join up and work there. I replied “no” then she began to tell me how “they” wouldn’t leave her alone and were hassling her to join staff. I watched with amusement as a staff member smoothly interrupted her (he was the recruiter from the org who had been trying to get her to sign up – his name was Peter Mansell and later became a good friend) and took her off to one side while another came over and began to talk to me. She signed up for staff not long after that and went into what was still then the Guardian’s Office, who were the “external arm” of the Church and did public relations, legal stuff and other shady bits, for which their leader and several high-placed executives went to jail. The name was changed soon after to Office of Special Affairs (OSA). No-one even broached the subject of staff with me – I was obviously not staff material. Visibly a hippie drug-addled degraded being!!

I came back every night for the rest of the week and then went off to do my usual “visit the friends” stuff. I felt I couldn’t tell them what I was into as it was still way too weird for me to even get my head around. I went to a friend’s house and found a mutual friend there who wasn’t doing well – he’d been in a wheelchair for over a year after putting himself and his motorbike under the back of a truck at high speed and under several influences. His girlfriend had left him and his life was going down the toilet fast. He’d been hitting the “smack” (heroin) and alcohol a lot and he was a sickly grey-green colour - literally. His liver was so inflamed you could see the bulge in his body from it. I went and got one of my dope plants out of its pot, shook the dirt off the roots, hung it up to quick-dry it and took some green off the top and baked it briefly in the oven on a baking tray until it was crumbly then gave him a smoke of it. I had no desire to smoke it myself – amazingly I could just watch him start to get out-of-it with no thought of joining in. I then searched the front lawn for dandelions as I knew they were a great liver and kidney tonic and brewed him up some dandelion tea. I recruited one of the girls in the house to help and she cooked him light meals and helped me look for dandelions when we weren’t talking to him or feeding him joints.

We spent the rest of the weekend doing this, even going for a drive on the Sunday afternoon out to the bay to look for more dandelions as we’d even exhausted the ones on the nature strips in the whole street! My mate’s colour went from grey-green to grey to off-white to pale pink to rosy cheeks by the time Sunday night came around and I had to go home to get ready for work the next day. He’d also smoked half the plant I’d pulled out and had a huge appetite. I gave him the rest of the plant and told him to use the others down the backyard if he wanted to – I wasn’t going to be using them myself. Then I caught the train home, feeling very pleased with myself. A good weekend helping someone.

I went to work and dug holes and filled them in with concrete all Monday then went to go to the “org” (organization – what the staff at the Church called themselves and/or the building) but I missed the train as it was early. The next one just didn’t come and I was going to be so late I couldn’t face the thought of going in and seeing the “Sup” (Course Supervisor) as he was hell on anyone who was late. I went home almost in tears. I spent the next week in turmoil as I liked these people but couldn’t go back. I didn’t even want my money back – they could have that but I just couldn’t face the thought of going in there again. This really nice lady who was the Sup’s boss (her name was Gail Gilbert) called me on the Friday night and I burst into tears over the phone when I told her what was happening. She really understood me and listened to me like no-one else ever had. I felt SO much better. She asked me to come see her when I next could so off I went on the Saturday afternoon.

She took me into the courseroom and up the back to this table where she had an “E-Meter” sitting on the table. She sat me down and handed me the “cans” and got me to read aloud the now-dreaded “Keeping Scientology Working.” Something seemed to happen with the meter and she got me to look a word I knew the meaning of. No I didn’t – I had the completely wrong idea of the word. But I’d been in the top 2% of the State in my English exams at school – even doing drugs!! We continued and she kept stopping me and getting me to look up words I “knew” but didn’t – I was amazed at this and started to get really excited. This was amazing! I was understanding this thing so well I couldn’t believe it. Scientology was SO COOL!!!!! Looking up words became a passion that has lasted to this day. I’d NEVER felt like this before – the world was such a beautiful place. I floated out of there that afternoon and went home and spent the next day really enjoying my garden. And absolutely I was going back on Monday night!

You have to understand the magnitude of this for me – I’d breezed through school on the principle of “if you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” I’d topped my year in Art and done very well in English and managed to pass everything else with minimal work, while all my mates who cared about school spent hours and hours “studying” for exams. But I’d never remember anything I’d looked at in school and dropped out of Uni a failure because I couldn’t apply what I’d listened to in lectures nor read in textbooks. I couldn’t just bullshit my way through like I had at school. My art teacher in high school had even said to me she recognized my handwriting on an Art essay in the State exams and turned it over to someone else to mark as she knew what I was like – the teacher who marked it thought it was very good and had even given it to some other teachers to read but my teacher had a wry smile on her face while she related this as she knew how good I could seem like I knew what I was talking about – it was a private joke she shared with me.

So here I was, no longer wanting drugs for the first time in nine years and able to repair my inability to really comprehend as well – which had been a major reason I’d fallen into drugs in the first place. So I was hooked on this scientology stuff. I turned up every week night and studied and stopped visiting most of my friends as they were all still doing drugs and couldn’t understand my new life. The more sensible ones wished me well but were a bit concerned about what I’d gotten into; the rest just tried to get me back on as they “knew” I wouldn’t last long off the drugs. I’d been a drug “pig” for so long and written myself off so much there was no way I’d stay clean forever.

Even the guys I worked with were slowly finding me more weird to have around but my bosses were very impressed. I even asked one to explain some terms he’d used and he spent half an hour happily doing this with me. And I turned up on time most of the time now, and not spaced out to the point of complete stupidity. I enjoyed my work and my life. I even started to dress a bit better. And started to wear shoes – I’d had to go to the “word-clearer” (who specialized in finding people’s misunderstood words on the E-meter – a simplified lie detector that is supposed to operate by showing the electrical changes that occur when a person thinks. You hold a pair of soup cans connected to this device and the person on the other side asks questions and watches for a response on the meter) and he’d had trouble with his meter until he got me to wrap my feet in a towel and suddenly I realized that yes I was cold all the time because my feet were freezing. What else could this place do for me?

Then the inevitable happened.

 

[Good twin]

.......I know what's gonna happen next.

 

[Div6]

 

[Axiom142]

Great stuff Scooter, can’t wait for the rest of it!

But makes me realise how boring my life was.

I didn’t see any reference to where this was – is it Sydney?

That bit about “Could drink 24 cans of beer at a party…” surely that’s a typical Aussie male and nothing unusual? :confused2:

Axiom142

 

[Zinjifar]

I had to laugh when you talked about working at "the Post Office. More drugs and alcohol..." I also worked at the Post Office here in the U.S., with young people, old people, all different races, and the drugs! We were all working stoned out of our minds, and then would go home to a co-workers house to get stoned all night. Ah, those were the days.

Enjoying your story. Continue.

Not to want to interrupt Scooter's story, which I'm really enjoying, but, you might enjoy Charles Bukowski's first book HG; 'Post Office'. I ran into it after I'd just gotten done with a stint at the USPO (before it was the 'Postal Service') and it really struck me with its reality. Very good book that launched a very interesting career.

Zinj

 

[Wisened One]

Oh god, scooter. The part where you describe how excited you were looking up words, that took me back to when I first experienced word-clearing. EVERY single time I finished clearing a word, the room literally become so bright, clear and sharp, I felt like I was almost back on acid. (And no, this wasn't a flashback). So, I, too became passionate and LOVED when I had an mu....(I was also top of my Gifted English classes in high school), but the awareness that would come to me was almost like a high/drug in itself!

And my hubby's gonna LOVE readin' your story!! He too, used to grow his own dope. William's Wonder. People used to come from other STATES to get his stuff, lol!

He's mid-writing out his long story as well, and I need to get back to mine!

But YOU keep going! Fascinating stuff!



Michelle

 

[Woggin' out]

Moar Please??

 

[EP - Ethics Particle]

It's a serial folks!

Yea Scooter! Keep writin' an we'll keep watchin' an readin'

As a sorta "aside" - I'm personally interested in word-clearing and MU phenomena which has not received too much emphasis in discussion, but is a common thread for many as a key attraction; particularly at the beginning. Or perhaps it has been thoroughly covered and I just missed it. Anyone know? :confused2:

Roy/EP

 

[Carnaubawax]

All really interesting Scooter - thanks.

 

[FoTi]

Lovin' it

Good story.

Can't wait to read more.

 

[scooter]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody - here's the next installment for your reading pleasure (I hope).

Joining Staff

There had been this guy on staff called Richard Yarred who’d spoken to me several times at courseroom breaks and he seemed cool. He was a professional piano player who was filming his own music video for TV and was a bit of a bullshitter but so was I so we seemed to get along well. One night after course he took me for a guided tour of the “org” and showed me where he worked and what he did and took me around and introduced me to several other staff and then asked me would I like to work with them? Of course I would. So he took me to meet this guy called Peter Beaven and Peter signed me up for five years of staff. I had no problems doing this at all – this place was amazing and I wanted more. And I didn’t care if they couldn’t pay well – now that I wasn’t blowing all my money on partying I was easily able to save up for stuff – I’d started saving for a car as I’d been without one for a while. Maybe even a motorbike. I’d happily paid up for an “Interneship” for my auditor course recently after it had been explained to me that doing this “internship” would make me a really great auditor – it was only about $400 and I had that now in my bank account. I went and got it out lunchtime the next day (a Thursday) and gave it to them then went back to work.


One of the first experiences I had as a staff member was having this guy brought up to “Qual” (the Qualifications Division in the Church, where the staff and the paying public got sorted out if the Scientology they received didn’t go well) who’d has some “co-audit” a few days before and was visibly distressed. I think it was the first weekend I worked there. He was writhing with discomfort and looked terrible. My boss Tanya introduced him to me and wanted me to “flatten” (keep doing until the end result was gotten) the co-audit he’d been doing. She gave me the commands and sat me in a corner of Qual and then I started with him and she and the other staff kept watching me in case anything happened. He was literally writhing around constantly and having a terrible time – didn’t bother me in the slightest. Just kept asking him the questions and listening to his answers. He raised his voice a few times which didn’t bother me – the only thing that got on my nerves was the “hovering” staff. Suddenly his face started glowing and he told me about a wonderful thought he’d just had about his life and I thought this was the good point to end off so I did and took him down for a coffee. Peter Mansell was there and started talking to him and then took him downstairs and signed him up for the Day Organization. My seniors weren’t happy with that as I worked for the Foundation organization (we did nights and weekends, Day did weekdays). It wasn’t my problem so I didn’t take it too seriously but I got told I should’ve recruited him myself. I shrugged and said I’d do it with the next one they gave me to fix up. This auditing stuff was piss easy – I didn’t understand why they thought I’d done such an unexpectedly good job. I felt chuffed with the praise but seriously, couldn’t everyone do this? I mean, you just keep asking these questions over and over and the person eventually sorts out the shit in their mind from the good stuff – all you had to do was listen. How hard could that be?

My job was “Cramming Officer” – I was supposed to correct their staff if they weren’t doing their jobs per what Mr Hubbard had written. There were these impressive volumes of books – green covers for all the policies he’s written on how to run the organization and red covers for the ones that covered the “Tech” – the technologies he’d developed for bettering people in various ways.

I was rapidly taught ‘Method Nine Word Clearing” This was a technique for locating a person’s misunderstood words by getting them to read the page aloud while the “Word Clearer” reads along silently with another copy. If the person stumbles or alters the words in any way there is supposed to be a misunderstood word there or before the mistake so I had to find it and help the person clear it.

There had been and order come down from “up-lines” (senior management in the US) that all executives had to M9 some issues LRH had sent out recently – I spent hours every night ‘til well after usual knock-off time listening to people stumble over these issues and burying ourselves in dictionaries until I had to leave to catch the last train back to suburbia and some sleep.

I also had to get the professional auditors in for cramming if they’d not followed LRH’s instructions letter-perfect. I had a run-in with a rather irate man called Harry Bloomberg when I tried to get one of his juniors to cramming. I’d been told to go nag this particular auditor to get him down to Qual and I was doing just that when Harry blew up at me about my harassment. I left and told my senior about it and from the look on their face I could tell that Harry was right in what he’d said and that they’d known something like this would happen sooner or later. I later got to know Harry very well and was sad to watch his last few years as this wonderful person slowly wasted away from chronic kidney malfunction before dying. He was one of Scientology’s most stellar people and I was blessed to have known him as a work colleague.

I was doing my utmost to be part of this group – the office I was based at for my other job was less than a mile from the Org and I used to walk to the Org in quiet times to study my staff courses. I stayed back after hours lots as that’s what all the other staff did – we’d be putting things in envelopes ‘til 3am quite often but no-one seemed to mind. I certainly didn’t then. It was almost like those first few weeks of being in love – you know the feeling where you don’t feel like sleeping and can’t get more than 4 hours sleep anyway before you want to get up and do things in this best possible of worlds and everything looks great and everyone likes you and nothing goes wrong. All butterflies and rainbows.

There were a few things about being on staff I wasn’t too happy with though – they wanted me in there Saturdays and Sundays. Sundays OK but Saturdays I was playing soccer – maybe I’d come in in the morning and go play soccer in the afternoon. Yep that would be OK but the pressure to drop that soon began to be put on me. Also having time off for family get-togethers. My family lived all over the place and we regularly all caught up a few times a year and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just have the odd weekend off to go hitchhike to see one of my sisters and then come back. Or go to a family get-together on a Sunday when they’d all come to Sydney for some reason. I kept being told we had to “clear the planet” (clear means to get rid of all your repressions and such and be able to live life totally analytically. Clearing the planet is the goal of Scientology – it means everyone on Earth is living in a scientology “haven” and being analytical rather than reactive) and we were going to do this by 1984 and won’t it be great to have the planet all knowing and using this Scientology stuff so what’s a few years of sacrificing time with your family?

Also now I wasn’t studying in the courseroom any more. To start with I’d been allowed to at least study on the weekends and do my staff stuff on weeknights. Now the workload was such that I was needed on staff all the time. I stopped playing soccer as it was really only for “wogs” (non-Scientologists) and then stopped going to work as they were only “wogs” too and began to work for one of the guys on staff who needed a labourer. I didn’t even tell my work – they phoned me after a week to find out what had happened and I told them then. I had a planet to clear and working for them just wasn’t going to help – they’d wanted me to go work out of Sydney for six to eight weeks and I wanted to but the other staff didn’t so I just didn’t go to work. The guy I’d started working for told me (after I’d officially quit working for my former employers) that he couldn’t keep me on full-time as a labourer and I’d need to get other work. I found some work making lights for theatres and rock bands with another bunch of Scientologists. I had no time for anything else now but I didn’t mind too much. I was learning the ropes of my staff job and getting lots of commendations for what I was doing. Cleared planet by 1984? No problems. I was dedicated to doing it. Sacrifices had to be made for any great cause.

Also now I was being made responsible for my “statistics” – every staff member has to measure their daily and weekly production and graph them and take actions to make them increase – “get your stats up” in scientology-speak. I had little training for my job and I really was dependant on lots of help to do my job and I was running into the politics of the place. Being told to get people to see me but then not being allowed to get those people during my work hours – both of these on the same day by the ED (Executive Director) of the Foundation Org. Having people who I respected give me a really hard time for trying to do my job. I expected that in ordinary groups but in this elite crowd? “We” were supposed to have all the answers to humanity’s problems and petty bickerings were making the job harder. My only answer was “we” all have to get “Up the Bridge” (the Bridge is all the levels of “enlightenment” of Scientology – to explain it as simply as possible) as quickly as possible then these silly arguments wouldn’t happen

There was this area of the building that was always locked and occasionally I saw earnest young men and women come and go from it – it was called the Guardian’s Office (GO). The woman in charge of it scared me – she glared at me frequently and she wore pancake make-up and did eyebrows in pencil as it seemed she had none of her own. Her name was Audrey Devlin and she ran the local GO. My first few dealings with her were a bit on-edge but I got to know her over the years and she was (I thought) a decent lady, even if she did remind me of a much-hated aunt. The Continental Office for the GO was even weirder – I used to get a lift home sometimes with another staff member who had to sometimes drop stuff off there and he’d park out the front of the building in Harris Street Ultimo, walk to a nearby phone booth and call the office, someone would look out the window and see it as him and then they would come down to the door and let him in – all very cloak-and-dagger. It was explained to me that the office had to be kept that secure because of all the enemies of Scientology who would love to get their hands on what the GO had in their files etc. etc.. I didn’t push the point any further – I was learning to accept stuff uncritically.

And now the problems began to start with my family. My Dad was the Baptist pastor at a small country church and he and Mum had heard bad things about Scientology. This made me a PTS (Potential Trouble Source – means I was connected to someone who didn’t like me doing Scientology so therefore I was going to go up and down emotionally about my involvement with Scientology) and I was taken off my studies to “handle” this. I had to practice what to say to my parents so that I wouldn’t stir up the situation more. I did this and got my Dad to read a book called “How to Choose Your People” by a Scientologist called Ruth Minshull. He liked that. Then I was told not to get him to read that because it wasn’t Source – only L Ron Hubbard was Source and I should only use Source. So I gave him “Dianetics” – the first book on the subject of the mind by L Ron Hubbard. He started reading it and came into my room one morning steaming mad and threw it on my bed after yelling how much crap it was – highly unusual behaviour for him.

I later found out the Church had had an “Open Day” very recently and he’d turned up at it, asked lots of questions (more than the staff present could/would handle) and been asked to leave. But I never found that out until over twenty years later, such was his disgust at the way he felt he’d been treated. And, to add to the comedy of errors, my aunt had been chatting to some strangers on the train (I come from a very sociable family) and found out they were Scientologists. She asked them if they knew me (without saying she was my aunt) – the reply was “Isn’t he the one that’s having trouble with his parents over being in Scientology?” It didn’t take me as long to find out about that one – just fifteen years.

So by now my whole family were openly suspicious about what I was into and it was all my responsibility to get it sorted before I could do anything else in Scientology. I had been sharing my parents’ house with my sister and coming home at all hours and not doing my jobs around the house like I’d agreed to (like mowing the lawns) simply because I was constantly too tired from working two jobs and staying back late to do “extra” stuff at the Org because we had to. And now my Dad had semi-retired and they’d moved back to Sydney and were seeing first-hand what I was like.

 

[dchoiceisalwaysrs]

Scooter, I don't know what it is, but I find myself smiling a lot as I read your story. Thanks

 

[FoTi]

Keep going

More please.

 

[Carmel]

Hey Scoots,

I'm enjoying your story - brings back all sorts of memories of things and people I'd forgotten about (hadn't forgotten about my brother though, but didn't know about that which you described ). Have had a few giggles and am looking forward to more.

Cheers,
Carmel

 

[HappyGirl]

Great stuff Scooter!! Ready for more.

Not to want to interrupt Scooter's story, which I'm really enjoying, but, you might enjoy Charles Bukowski's first book HG; 'Post Office'. I ran into it after I'd just gotten done with a stint at the USPO (before it was the 'Postal Service') and it really struck me with its reality. Very good book that launched a very interesting career. Zinj

Thanks, Z! I added it to my Amazon wish list.