When I first found ars, I loved reading about the experiences of others - they made so much sense to me.

It takes a while to write these, though. I'll try to do a part a week until I'm done - I hope you don't hold me to it, though.

Feel free to repost or web wherever you'd like.

I hope this helps someone else, as others stories have helped me.

And just for reference, this took place in the early 90's over a span of about 6 years.

exscnmem

My story.

I had just graduated college, moved into my own apartment in a different city, had a wonderful new job; I was on my own!

Someone knocked on my apartment door one night & asked if I'd like to do a free personality test. I said sure; I always liked those kinds of things: personality tests, zodiac predictions, I didn't take much of it seriously, but it was fun to do. I had never heard of Scientology, Dianetics or L. Ron Hubbard - never.

I got a call asking me to come in to the Dianetics center to get the results of my test. I asked if they could just mail them - when I had done these types of things before, there was a computer printout of your personality traits. The person said that she needed to go over them with me, so I'd fully understand them. I finally said ok, & set up an appointment. When I went, I almost missed the building, I was about ready to go home, when I finally saw it. It was nondescript, and pretty quiet when I went in. I went into an office with a woman &

we went over the test. It described me pretty well. I don't remember the exact graph, but I had my up-points & down-points. But see, I didn't have any problem with my personality. So when she said "Scientology can help with that", I said I didn't really need help.

She wasn't able to ruin me, because I was perfectly comfortable with who I was. The reg cycle went on forever - probably at least 2 hours.

By this time I was tired & just wanted to leave. She was called out of her office for a minute. I decided that I'd just get the thing she wanted me to get, just so I could get out of there.

She came back, I agreed to buy the Dianetics book & sign up for Book I auditing. I later found out that she was called out of the office by a senior, who had been monitoring our conversation & told to "waste me" - which means just let me go. Too bad I didn't hold out just a little longer.

I didn't get too much out of Book I - I let go of some grief, but it just didn't do much else. They tried to get me to sign up for a Comm course, but my comm was pretty good, even on the graph. My one "ruin"

that I did want to fix was relationships, so they were finally able to persuade me to do the "How to Improve Relationships with Others"

course. During that course, I argued everything with the sup - poor guy! "Why did LRH always use 'he'?" was a big one I was stuck on. The sup just said that was the way things were written back when LRH wrote it & some things didn't get updated. I don't think at that time he made me word clear anything, but he did ask me to demo some stuff to check my understanding.

Right before this course, I had a fairly traumatic breakup with a significant other in my life. That did leave me fairly vulnerable &

taking this course, and suddenly having a bunch of "friends" did fill a void in my life. I think that was the beginning of the end for me.

I was persuaded to do something called "Life Repair" - this was a combination of 12 ½ hours of auditing on the meter & 3 basic courses, one of which had to be the Success Through Communications Course. I did get some wins out of this auditing, and I really enjoyed the courses. I liked the TRs on the comm course - as a kid, we had played "staring games", so this just seemed an extension of that. The bull-baiting was a lot of fun, too. We didn't scream obscenities at each other - at this level it was pretty much trying to make the other person laugh, or perhaps get mad about something. Did it help me communicate with others? Possibly a little. As I did more on the bridge & tougher TRs, it did help me communicate with other Scientologists. But I don't remember my wog boss or co-workers ever comment on my "newly improved ability to communicate".

I also took the Personal Values & Integrity Course. The honor code is gone over in this course, as well as basics of O/Ws, including an O/W write-up at the end. I also really enjoyed this course. The honor code didn't seem "sinister" at the time. It was all framed in the context of helping others. For example, "Never fear to harm another in a just cause" ( paraphrased - I don't remember the exact wording) had a picture of someone being mugged & someone hitting the mugger to get him to stop - or something similar to that. Well, of course I would want to stop a mugger - whether by harm or otherwise! And I felt "clean" after writing up my O/Ws. I hadn't been in a religion where that kind of confession was done. I was told they'd be kept secret and only the course sup would ever read them, and then only to check their form. That may have actually happened - so far they haven't been used against me, that I can recall.

Meanwhile, there was this cute part-time staff member. We had been talking a lot, and I was really hoping these courses would help me with this person.

After Life Repair, I signed up for the Purif. At this time, I wanted to keep up the interest of the other person, and actually the Purif sounded good - exercise, time in the sauna where I could relax, what the heck? I had not really done many drugs - they said I could run out sunburn, too, but I hadn't really been sunburned during my life either! Well, environmental pollutants, then. Anyway, I did the purif...nothing really ran out, but it was a comfortable program for me; I always liked sweating in the sauna. I do remember I got a cold on it, and it seemed to "run out" very quickly. (Usually I'd get a cold that would last at least a week, but this one was gone in a couple of days.) I kept meeting with this cute staff member, we went out a couple of times in the evening, after post & my time in the sauna. Pretty soon we were a couple, although I found out later that this person was also dating someone else in the org at the time & got in trouble for this, since both me & this other person were public &

we were dating a staff member.

I got approached for staff right after I finished my purif. I was used to being at the org all the time (since you need to be there for a minimum of 4 hours every day on the purif), and I was enjoying(?) a relationship with a staff member who always needed to work. Sure - I'll join, I'll get to spend more time with this person. It won't be that different from being on the purif. I was only going to be part-time, since I wanted to keep my job. I'd get some training, and I'd get discounts on my auditing. Somehow, during my time on the purif, I'd become a "believer". I'm still not exactly sure what or how it happened. I read a lot of LRH books in the purif, and agreed with him. I read some wacky stuff too (History of Man), but wanted to find out more. Scientology seemed to be the answer. I had somehow bought the fact that my life was in ruins & I had to get help. I wanted to join staff, because I saw all these people working their butts off to help people become better people, and I wanted to help them. They were my friends, they had helped me, helped me in relationships, were trying to help others, and I wanted to help. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Next up: my descent into the life as a staff member & my "rise" up the Bridge...

From: exscnmem@yahoo.com (ExScnMem)
Subject: Part 2 - my story
Date: 10 Sep 2002 09:54:05 -0700
Message-ID: <3f47257d.0209100854.45b02c17@posting.google.com>

I had some extra time, so you get an early installment of my next part.

Thanks for all the responses on part 1. It's taken me a while to do this, but it's kind of fun...at least now it'll be all down instead of inside my head.

Now up: my descent into the life as a staff member & my "rise" up the Bridge...

So, I was recruited by a Div 6 person, and began expediting in Div 6.

There are 3 different Div 6s - 6A which is getting new people in, Div 6B which is servicing new people, and Div 6C which is FSM and successes in Scientology (and each of these actually had 3 or 4 departments). By the way, I keep calling this my org, but in actuality it was a mission - it became an org, I believe on LRH's birthday the next year. So, the mission divisions are a little different, but I don't remember them as well - since we were becoming an org, I learned the org structure.

As an expeditor, I was assigned to do door-to-door personality testing - the same line that got me in. This was deemed the best way to get people in. I would go to upstat apartment complexes, knock on people's door & get them to fill out a personality test. The fact that I could actually do this, to me, was "proof" that Scientology worked. I could have NEVER gone door to door before, as I was somewhat shy & didn't like to bother people. By doing this, I felt my confront had come up & I was willing to communicate with anyone about anything. I was also responsible for Div 6 promotion. This was getting out various pieces of intro promo - like the OCA, purif promo, Dianetics book flyers, Film tickets, etc. We were expected to get out a LOT of this stuff. We'd go to movie theaters on Fri & Sat night & put OCAs on windshields, we'd put stacks in laundromats, ATM machines, we'd drive around neighborhoods & throw the "newspaper"

promo pieces onto driveways. We weren't really supposed to leave stacks places - the actual stat was promo gotten into people's hands.

But we justified it by going back another day & seeing if the stack was there - if it wasn't, we "assumed" people had taken them (and probably thrown them in the trash - but we didn't openly admit that).

The drive to get the stats up was amazing. Completed OCAs with phone number was my stat, as well as the promo stat. If I didn't get many filled out, I would do drilling on how to handle people who didn't want to take one. Meanwhile I was also doing my Staff Status courses & receiving auditing. I suddenly had no time off. I was also spending my own money on gas to go to the apartments & put out the promo. I learned about POs and CSWs on my courses (Purchase Order and Completed Staff Work), and began to PO for gas money. It was usually denied. I didn't know at that time how the money got distributed, but did later (more on that later). I wasn't bringing home much money - I really don't remember, but probably $5-$10 a week - or a little more if it was a REALLY good week. But this didn't matter to me, because I had another job.

There were also all-hands activities and staff meetings that would keep me up late at night. One of the most dreaded all-hands was the magazine. In the early 90's our org produced our own mag. We would get directives from up-lines that stated what LRH article needed to be in the mag & what generally the theme was, but then we did the rest.

We had a really good guy in Div 2 who was responsible for the mag, and for the other promotion of the org. There is a department in Div 2, the Dept of Promotion, and this is responsible for all the promo of the org - compared to just Div 6A promo that I passed out. This guy ran his own printing press & made the OCAs and other promo pieces himself. The mag was really great - he'd do interviews of various public or staff, of people who had reached a certain step on the Bridge. We had local news, mentioning people who had completed courses or auditing cycles within the month, and local events.

Sometime in the mid-90's a directive came down from uplines - all mags had to be produced there for higher quality. Also a higher price. I think it cost something like 3x as much that we had to pay to the "upper org" for them to produce our mag. We'd send them completions &

local events, but then they did everything else. That's why mags all look the same now. They always had the same LRH articles, but now they are, in essence, the same mag. Sure, they're in color & glossy - I guess that's what management meant by an upstat mag. Although we hated the all-hands of putting the mag together ourselves, I feel this was one of the things that started a decline in the org - lack of individuality. Plus, a LOT more money going uplines, I never understood why they needed so much money...

On the auditing side - I had bought my TRs and Objectives course. The TRs are the same 4 that you do in the Comm course, at a higher gradient, plus 4 more - Upper Indoc TRs including the famous ashtray "levitation". Why did I yell at that ashtray? Did I feel stupid?

No. I felt like I was commanding the ashtray at a different level from my body, and even though my arms were moving the ashtray, it wasn't "me" who was moving it. Hard to explain exactly. They didn't have a twin for me to do my objectives. Usually (or maybe I should say they always hoped), 2 people would team together and do the whole TRs & Objs together, both auditing & doing the coaching. However, since I was on staff, I had weird study hours, and there were never enough people in the org so you couldn't really team up with someone, unless you signed up together. You were responsible for finding your own twin - go get someone to sign up with you!

Anyway, so I paid more money to do my objectives in session with a real auditor. I think others have mentioned the book & the bottle procedure (I forget if this is the same as Op pro by Dup) - where you are directed to look at the book, go over to the book, pick up the book, put down the book, turn around, etc with the bottle - one at each end of the room. I went exterior on this process. Just a little. As I was walking over to one, I really felt behind my head - it was a really neat feeling. So I was routed to the examiner & then of course, the reg! Here I was on a really big high, the perfect time to get me to pay more money. I needed to do the End of Endless Int rundown (I think that's what it's called - I should have a perfect memory, since I attained Clear, but things are fuzzy - more on that later, too).

So I only had 1 credit card - they "helped" me raise the limit, and find another card. At another reg cycle that stands out in my mind - they really needed money by Thurs at 2 (it was Wed). One of the reges knew a place I could get a loan quickly. She set it up, with my car as collateral & I went in, signed the papers (an "educational" loan), and got the money by Thurs at 2. I can't believe this now, but that seemed like a big win for me - to "make it go right" and get the money in time to save the org. Whenever a person did something like that, they were very validated - and laid off of for a while, until the next "hill 10" of low GI, so you had to "make it go right" to get the money again. I borrowed money from other staff members (as a staff member, you couldn't borrow money from public), I had the loan & 2 credit cards, I got at least 3 more credit cards. Eventually I maxed all cards out ($10000 a pop). Whenever I paid one down a bit, I'd max it back out again. I have no idea how much money I spent in Scientology.

Every paycheck I got went to rent & the minimum payment due. I always paid back the people I borrowed money from & kept on time with my payments - not sure how I did that, but I did eat a lot of Raman Noodle meals during those days.

The other auditing action that I really liked (you guys are going to think I'm nuts here, but bear with me), was Grade 2 & the Johannasburg Confessional. As I mentioned before, I hadn't been in a religion that put emphasis on confessionals, so this was new to me. For the Joburg, the auditor says "I am not auditing you", and then you go into all your O/Ws. I think this is the first time I went "past track" into earlier lives. I really felt this was real at the time. There were other past life incidents that I made up, just to get out of session, but these first ones were real to me. I was never anyone famous, but I did feel that I had lived these lives, so that was cool. The cool part of this was the end - the auditor says that you are forgiven for all that you have confessed. That just felt amazing to me. I was really blown out about that.

After Grade 2 I had found a book that explained the EPs of the various Grades. So after that, I pretty much faked grade 3 & 4. Not completely...

I'd get some auditing on the level & feel good & then start to get bored - so I'd give the EP. Maybe I did actually have it, and was "overrun", but who knows!

This is getting long, so I'll stop for now.

Next up...my 2D (no gory details, just some facts ;-), going Clear, and moving into HCO - my dream was to be an ethics officer (yikes!)

From: exscnmem@yahoo.com (ExScnMem)
Subject: Part 3 - my story
Date: 11 Sep 2002 10:03:23 -0700
Message-ID: <3f47257d.0209110903.17d58fa4@posting.google.com>

This isn't the part I said it would be, but...

A couple of things I forgot about my early Scn days before I go on.

One of the first events I went to was the one where Mr. Miscavige announced the new OEC Vols. I don't remember which event this was, but for some reason, this announcement stuck out in my mind for most of my Scn "career". I very well remember the announcement - that 100s of SO personnel had painstakenly gone through ALL of LRH's notes, PLs, HCOBs, etc, and had finally come up with THE REAL AND TRUE LRH writings, with no missing words, or squirrely tech. This was announced with a huge fanfare and now everyone could get all of LRHs HCOPLs in Vols 0-7 & the 3 Management Series. Some of the Tech Vols were also finished at this time & "management" was working around the clock to finish those up. Plus, SO missionaires across the globe were working day & night to translate all of this into other languages.

This impressed me quite a bit. We were supposed to go back to our orgs & shred all the old OEC vols, as some PLs & HCOBs in there were written by squirrels (read: David Mayo). We had to rent some kind of tree pulper to shred these books - it took us quite a while to do.

Even then, some had to remain, because occasionally a "new" PL would reference and "old" PL. Then after a couple of years, new revisions were issued. This confused me a lot. It was said they "found" new notes, or issues - I thought all of that had already been done? Of course, then in 1993 with the IRS suddenly becoming "our friend", issues had to be gone back to, and SPDs (Scientology Policy Directives) had to be written, since LRH had named IRS agents SPs, etc, and now we loved them...

One other event that happened was the Time magazine article. My parents didn't say too much about my involvement, until this article came out. My mother sent me the article. Like a good little Scientologist, I didn't read it - well, I looked at some parts, but averted my eyes at the OT3 stuff - I really did think I'd cave in &

get sick if I read it. I brought it right over to the Ethics Officer.

Therein lies my first experience with PTS handling. I couldn't do the PTS/SP course, because the Student Hat was a pre-req & I hadn't done that. But I got a nice little program to study a bunch of PTS &

SP issues, and was regged to buy the PTS/SP tapes (never listened to all of them tho). I then worked out a "handling" for my mom, which included sending her the tape "Can We Ever Be Friends?". I didn't listen to the tape before I sent it. Talk about a stupid move! My mom probably would have gotten over things if I hadn't sent her that tape, but it is SOOOO condescending, and she was really insulted.

That tape caused more problems than the Time article! Anyway, my mom & I agreed to speak on "good roads, good weather" terms. She let me know, in no uncertain terms that I would receive no money from her &

would not be in her will. But other than that, we were able to stay in comm, and we very rarely mentioned Scientology. I did receive more PTS handlings over the years, and even though I didn't do the course, I probably knew more about these PLs & HCOBs than anyone else in my org...more on that later.

Oh yeah, and one other BIG thing...

Diana Hubbard, Div 6 Internal Exec Int, the "old man's" daughter, came to visit OUR org! She actually visited several orgs in the area. I had the honor of being her expeditor. I was in Div 6, I had virtually no reports in my ethics folder & I was very upstat, so I was assigned to drive her around, make sure everything was set for her, relay any comm she might have - generally be a "go between" so she wouldn't have to deal with any extraneous stuff.

Now, when you're in Scientology, you know almost nothing about LRH's family. No one ever talked about any of them - some of the "old timers" must have know some stuff, but no one ever talked about any of them - ever. I knew Mary Sue had gone to jail with GO members. I thought it was some kind of "greatest good" that she had taken the fall & LRH had reluctantly divorced her, again for the greatest good.

I vaguely recall hearing that he had a son, LRH Jr, but never knew anything about him. So here, finally, was a link to Ron.

I had been to events & seen how Mr. Miscavige, Mr. LeSevre (I'm totally misspelling names here, sorry!), R. Miscavige, etc carried themselves, and there were several OT 8s on our staff & part of our public, so that is what I expected in Mr. Hubbard (I always thought that was weird - females were "Mr" and "Sir" - but I digress). She was very quiet - that's what I noticed the most. She did have "command presence", but it was much more subdued that what I had expected. She had the red hair of Ron, and was quite pretty. She seemed tired, and somewhat sad, and wasn't as "gung-ho" as the other "notables" I mentioned. She did her things quietly, and calmly. She did do a couple of events where she spoke & she was more forceful, but I still have an image of her as quiet, tired, sad and calm. Very different than what I had expected. All the staff were in awe of her.

I remember one woman who was just so thrilled & giddy. Everyone seemed to have a renewed sense of purpose after she left, though.

As long as I'm on "celebrities"...

There was the time I was expeditor to Jeff Pomerantz. That was very cool - why? He had just finished playing a part on the soap opera that I loved, and here I was driving him around in my car! I got a big kick out of that. David Pomerantz did a few events for us for various IAS or other "fund raisers". And there was that guy - I can never remember his name - Michael Roberts (thanks Tilman - checked your celebrity website). He came up often for IAS events. Along with SO IAS regs Kay and Bridgett (I've seen their names on ars from time to time). I went to CC LA a few times during my time in Scientology, but never met any other celebrities.

Next up (really, this time)....my 2D (no gory details, just some facts ;-), going Clear, and moving into HCO - my dream was to be an ethics officer (yikes!)

From: exscnmem@yahoo.com (ExScnMem)
Subject: Part 4 - my story
Date: 17 Sep 2002 13:03:06 -0700
Message-ID: <3f47257d.0209171203.1d5b61d8@posting.google.com>

I got a little busy - but here's part 4 - a shorter version that I originally thought. More to come later, though...

Now up....my 2D (no gory details, just some facts ;-)

OK, A few things about my 2D. I mention them, because one of the main reasons I joined staff & stayed in Scn, was because I met this really great person & wanted to have a relationship with him/her.

So, This person stopped seeing the other person, who was a public (although eventually became staff as well), and the 2 of us decided that we should move in together - mostly to save expenses. We found a house with 3 bedrooms & found 2 other staff members to share the house with us. Things were going really well, I was moving up the Bridge pretty well, although my 2D wasn't - he/she was now on staff full time, since I could support us both, and so didn't receive much auditing. I was working a wog job & so paid for my auditing. You're supposed to get 2 ½ hours a day of study & auditing, but that very rarely happened in a Class 5 org. Sure, you'd get hatting for your post, but then to do what's called a full hat, you usually needed to do the Student Hat (to learn how to study LRH's way) first. That was a big course, and many staff just didn't do it. Staff were also supposed to get auditing & move up the Bridge. But that would only happen if there was an "extra" auditor & no public PCs. Most staff auditing consisted of "reviews" - if something happened to get them upset about their case, they'd get pulled in for a clean up, and that was about it. Occasionally, we'd get programs from management to get all staff on study - that would last until the next Thurs before 2, or until a Hill 10 - then we'd go right back to "produce, produce, produce". Of course, if you were higher up in the org, you'd often get study or auditing. But the course sups & auditors rarely got any, since we usually didn't have too many of them & we always needed them on post to deliver to the public.

Anyway, my 2D was going pretty well. We'd sometimes go out & do promo together, since we were both in Div 6. We'd occasionally natter to each other about things going on in the org, or talk about leaving Scn - although we never said it in that exact way. We'd sort of talk around it - saying "wouldn't it be fun to go live on a deserted island", because we didn't want to have to write each other up.

Eventually, we got engaged & started making marriage plans. Also around this time, we began having problems with our house mates. One of them couldn't keep up rent payments & moved out & we found a public. The other also couldn't keep up on rent, but he stayed. We were "encouraged" by our ED to help him out, since he was an upstat staff member, but he got more & more behind.

Eventually we decided that we just couldn't afford it anymore & gave up the house. My 2D I moved into a cheaper apartment (I'll tell you what happened to the other staff member later).

We had a lot of fun these days. Not all of life in Scientology is bad, even when you're working so much. You do find time to have fun &

play, although most of your outings are cheap - going to the beach, or for hikes in the mountains. You cherish the time you have, because you just know that what you're doing (on staff) is saving the planet.

So we're within 2 months of our wedding date, and things start to get a little weird. My 2D doesn't seem to interested in the plans, while I'm going full out. We were supposed to meet to look at invitations &

my 2D didn't show. I was devastated. I asked my 2D if he/she still wanted to get married - he/she said no. I just couldn't understand it. I knew that getting married was the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics. Yes, that's how I felt about it. I suppose I was in love, but looking back, I'm not so sure (what happened later may have clouded my judgement, though). Getting married, having a kid or 2, working on staff, me working a wog job to support us - everything fit together so well - I couldn't understand where this person was now coming from. It seemed totally out of the blue.

Well, I did something that to this day, I am truly ashamed of. I was by this time in HCO & had keys to everywhere in the org. We were both in separate handlings, and he/she had moved out of our apartment. Our situation wasn't resolving & I wanted to know why. My 2D's PC folder was in the C/S's office & I went in there & took a peek. Completely unethical, and something I can't believe I did. (I prided myself on being ethical - I followed everything LRH wrote & believed truly in the tech, especially the ethics tech).

Anyway, in there I found a KR from another staff member that never got routed to ethics (since I was in HCO), that said this staff member had noticed heavy 2D flows between my 2D and another staff member - a good friend of mine!

I couldn't believe that I'd been betrayed like that. Sure, we had broken up, but I thought we were trying to work things out.

So, I confessed to my auditor (I think) that I had seen this. It was now a big flap in the org, as somehow, word spread around as to what happened. My 2D & I ended up doing the 2D (Marriage) co-audit (even tho we weren't married). He/she confessed that the 2 of them had slept together. I was beyond pissed. At both of them. I mean, this other person had still been acting like my friend, even though he/she had slept with my 2D. I really had trouble imagining that someone in the "most ethical group on the planet" would do this! And this person was Clear, too! (My 2D wasn't - I sort of forgave him/her, thinking it was his/her case, but a Clear?! I was Clear at this time, too) So we did the 2D co-audit, decided to get back together, did conditions with each other & did the How to Save your Marriage Course (or something like that). Now, these things probably shouldn't have been done, since we weren't married. However, I really did push for them - I had considered myself married, sort of, because we were so close to the date, because it was the greatest good, and because we had been living together. My 2D would have preferred to let it go &

move on to this new person, but I raised a bunch of hell. I think I got my way, because I: 1) gave lots of money to the org, 2) was part time staff, 3) was valuable in HCO and so 4) they really didn't want to lose me. The other staff member also had to apply the Treason condition to me personally, since what he/she did was a betrayal in trust. Eventually, I forgave him/her, but things never really went back to normal.

I've mentioned in here that I was Clear & in HCO - I want to tell those parts of the story too, but will do that next time.

So next up - Turning into an EO & attesting to Clear!

From: exscnmem@yahoo.com (ExScnMem)
Subject: Part 5 - my story
Date: 27 Sep 2002 11:06:17 -0700
Message-ID: <3f47257d.0209271006.4497411c@posting.google.com>

So now up - Turning into an EO & attesting to Clear!

OK, so I wrote about my grades, and after grades you do NED - New Era Dianetics. There are various parts of NED, and I don't remember now what they are, but there are various stages of release you go through & attest to, all the while being on NED. It's basically Dianetics auditing, done on a meter, where you take up an area & find earlier-similars until you get to the basic & it blows. There seemed to be a lot of past track stuff - at least in my case not many things blew that happened this life time, so I had to go into past lives. As I said in Grade 2, most of the time it seemed really real, but occasionally I'd just get a glimmer of something & the auditor would take it up as if it were real, even though I didn't always agree that it was real, or happened to me. I didn't like NED as much as I liked the grades - probably because of the increasing feeling that things weren't real. So at this point, I had spent a lot of money & was ready to be Clear. At some time in my auditing, I did feel Clear, but guess I didn't give up the correct cognition. I had a bunch of reviews during NED, to see if I had been overrun on various things.

Sometimes I had, and during 1 of these corrections, I guess I gave a close enough cog that the auditor thought I should do the CCRD - Clear Certainity RunDown. My org didn't deliver it - you needed a specially trained auditor & C/S to deliver it & we didn't have that. So I needed to go to a different org to get this. That meant - a new reg!

Oh Boy! Now I get to be regged by a new org! Plus, the org was farther away - and I was still on post, so I couldn't do the auditing on post time. I ended taking off sick days at my wog job, or leaving early to do this. That really started to interfere with my wog job &

I got in trouble for it. I got a bad review 1 time & for several years after, I was watched closely. Anyway, I went up & started the CCRD - well, my cog was something to the effect of "Someone had given me this videotape (in my mind) and I was doing the recording". I guess that since "someone" had given it to me, I was determined to need the PTS/SP Rundown - yeah! Back to the reg! The PTS/SP RD was also a lot of past track - plus I was still doing it at the other org & I just wanted it all to be over with. I determined that I was PTS to almost everyone in my life (except the Scientologists, of course), and the PTSness was always because someone this lifetime had done something to me in a past life. Anyway - I finally finished this RD, but was determined not to be Clear - so back to my own org for more NED. Talk about a let down! I was certain I was Clear, and this was a big disappointment. I still think I had the cog at that time & I was always trying to rehabillatate that in my mind, for the rest of my NED. Eventually, I "took responsibility" for the recording - that "I"

was the one "mocking it up" - back for another CCRD. This time, I "passed".

Talk about validation when you go Clear! You've got all these people clapping for you, cheering for you - it's a huge rush! The Sunshine RD after attesting to Clear is to go outside & spot things. I still remember the feeling - like I was looking at the world from a much different viewpoint & saw things much "clearer" than I ever had before. Driving back to my org was also very different to me. It's very hard to explain, even though the feeling is still there.

So, how was I now different? Did I have perfect recall? Did I never get sick?

Here's my theory on perfect recall - it doesn't hold up as well on public Clears, but for staff it's pretty easy. You're whole life is caught up in Scientology. Every day you do the same things - go to work, go to post, do the same things on post as you do every other day, go home & go to bed. There's no variation. If there is, you know exactly when & where that variation is. What tie was Joe Blow wearing last Thurs? The same tie he ALWAYS wears on Thurs. I think this is also why my recall now of my time in Scn is so blurry - I did the same thing day after day after day. Years didn't matter in Scn, the only holidays were LRH holidays - you didn't have "traditional"

holidays or new years to mark off time. Everything was measured by Thurs at 2pm. You didn't get a weekend break, or Christmas vacation.

So when you committed an overt, or caught a cold, you knew exactly where you were & what you were doing.

Did I get sick? Of course - I still had PTSness - even after doing the PTS/SP RD & receiving much hatting on PTS/SP tech. I would only be "cured" of that by doing the PTS/SP course - THEN I would never get sick again (yea, right). Oh, I MIGHT get sick again - if there was a NEW SP on my lines - that's how it was explained when the OTs and other Clears got sick. Yes, I bought it - hook, line & sinker. It made sense to me like this - if there's a cold going around your office (or home), why doesn't everyone get it? Some have some resistance to the cold, right? Where do they get this resistance? By not being PTS to anything. I know there have been studies that show if you are stressed, you're more likely to catch a cold. Why are people stressed? Because they're PTS to something. Now, I also felt that being well rested & fed provided resistance to colds & stuff, and there aren't too many staff who are well rested & fed. Well, that's because staff are trying to Clear The Planet & stamp out SPs - of course they're PTS! But - No Case on Post! Doesn't matter if you're tired, sick, hungry - you still must produce. By the end of my time as a staff member, I KNEW I was PTS to the org. It was just so obvious to me. I tried to "handle" the org through the right comm lines, but that didn't work either. So I needed to disconnect.

OK, becoming an EO. At some point in my hatting as a staff member, I was required to read a booklet called "Divisional Summaries", which had a short summary on each department in the org. Well, I read the one on Div 1, Dept 3 (Department of Inspections & Reports, which is in Div 1 - HCO division), and the valuable final product of that department was something like "a highly ethical organization which can then deliver 100% standard tech" (I don't remember it exactly). The premise being that ethics must be in for tech to go in. This made a lot of sense to me. We also didn't have a very good Div 1 in our org - the 1st HAS (HCO Area Secretary - head of Div 1) that I knew, had blown - completely disappeared. The 2nd HAS had been recruited into the SO. The HAS we had now was completely unqualified for the job, and was mostly hold reception - he had no idea how to handle ethics.

There was only 1 other person in Div 1 - the telex guy, and he wasn't really in Div 1, because he wasn't qualified either. But, he was the only 1 in the org who knew how to do the telexes.

Div 1 has extrememly high qualifications. There's an HCOPL on the requirements - a huge list including no LSD, no drug reversion (since scn), no study problems, not an R/Ser (Rock Slammer - needle reaction indicating Evil Purposes), never had a security clearence, etc. HCO is even stricter than the SO - which is why the SO loves recruiting people who are in HCO - they're always qual'd for the SO.

OK, so I had been working in Div 6, and wanted to move into Div 1 - and I wanted to do it right. So, I started looking for a replacement for my post, and did a hat write-up. Since I wanted to be in ethics, I figured I should go about doing a transfer the right way, and followed all LRH policy. Of course, getting a replacement isn't easy - people don't usually walk into an org & say "sign me up for staff".

But eventually, someone came in off a personality test & had passed out to them, got some basic services & was recruited to be on staff - so off I went to HCO!

There was TONS of work to be done! KRs and other reports hadn't been filed in months, people weren't writing up conditions formulas, or BP (Battle Plans - what you're going to do to get production up for the week). There were petty squabbles among staff & some past upsets over ehtics matters that had driven staff & public away. I had my hands full.

Why did I want to do this? I've heard a lot of griping about Scn ethics on ars. So here's my viewpoint when I was in:

Writing KRs & other reports: If you see an outpoint, you should write it up so it can get handled. If you look at the policies through rose-colored glasses (which I had firmly in place), this make a lot of sense. I mean - if you saw a robbery taking place, you'd call 911, wouldn't you? If you knew that your doctor was doing something wrong, you'd inform someone, right? Well, same thing in Scn - if someone is doing something off-policy, they need to be corrected. I never really viewed ethics as punishment, I viewed it as correction. Maybe I was a different ethics officer than others have had. Usually KRs were written about someone on post not doing something right, or being late to post or course. And there were several ethics gradients to apply.

O/Ws: I've written before that I really loved this tech. I always treated people's O/W's & sec checks as confident info - although I know that some other people in the org delighted to finding out O/W's and using them against the person. O/W's were a way to unburden yourself of wrongs you had done. Then, I'd have the person look over the O/W's & have them determine the condition they were in - often on several dynamics. I had a lot of success with others doing this &

felt it was a great tool, when used correctly.

Conditions & BPs: Using the conditions formulas was the only way to improve conditions in life. You determined your condition by the stats you kept (stats - I never liked! Those were my only disagreement with Scn throughout my entire time. I never felt that the stats I was required to keep reflected what I did, etc... I guess stats are a whole category by themselves). You could also use conditions on your other dynamics to improve them. Occasionally liability or lower would be assigned, and usually the person in that condition would agree with it (not always, though, it's true). In a Class 5 org, though, a lower condition didn't mean that much - yeah, you had to work extra hours & do "scut" work - cleaning, etc. But it wasn't the SO dirty rag, whatever. I had some really great wins with people doing conditions on various dynamics. The one problem I always had, though, was people who were leaving staff. The doubt formula had to be applied, and the way I, as the EO, was supposed to approach this is: "how can you NOT choose to stay in this upstat, ethical group?", whereas the person leaving would be: "I am staying in the group, but will contribute as a public". Doubt always had to be skewed & looked at from only 1 way, or else you couldn't get the result necessary. I guess the condition of doubt could be a whole subject unto itself as well. Maybe later if I have time.

One of my first wins as an EO, though, was with Repair of Past Ethics Conditions. It's a specific procedure where you go back to a misapplied, or unapplied, etc condition you have & you apply the condition. It's often also used with Conditions By Dynamics. I used these 2 pieces of tech on 1 guy & he was just blown away! It was such a good feeling!

PTS/SP: I never had to declare anyone SP. I never had to tell someone to disconnect from a family member or friend. I did declare someone PTS (type D I think). I did put out Non-Enturbulation Orders on people (this is an order that says if the person enturbulates anyone else, they'll get declared). I wrote up an SP declare on this one guy - he was an alcoholic, had blown post several times - this one time it was really ugly. Anyway, I wrote it up & said I was going to send it for approval & post it, unless he got the $$ to go to Narconon & get cleaned up. I submitted a Comm-Ev on some people who had joined a squirrel group (more on that later). There was tech to handle PTSness - and you ALWAYS used the "handle" part. I guess we never really had many true SPs around. So since that never was part of my experience, I never paid much attention to what LRH said about how to treat SPs.

I mean, I know what it says (may be tricked, sued, lied to), but never really gave it much thought.

And that last line really sums it up. On the surface, most of the ethics tech seems reasonable - write someone up if they do something bad, work up conditions, handle your PTSness, and all this was supposed to bring about a state where the tech could be delivered standardly & people would move up the Bridge quickly.

I read some of these issues now, and realize that they can be taken a different way. Just as some people in my org used other's O/Ws to "harrass" them, all of the ethics tech can be used to harrass. Naïve little me wouldn't ever think of that, until it happened. I mean, LRH wrote this stuff to improve our lives, right? Only unethical people (like the SPs out there on ars) would read something else into it.

The people in Scn wouldn't. That's why you want to be in Scn - you'd never sue another Scientologist - you have a different way. What about OSA, you say? I knew several DSAs - very nice, friendly people, always doing "secret" stuff. You mean they're picketing people?!

They're using the ethics tech the same way "those SPs" use it - in a BAD way?!

My eyes didn't fully open until several years out of Scientology.

Next time I'll continue with my life as an EO & what happened to make things start falling apart.

From: exscnmem@yahoo.com (ExScnMem)
Subject: Part 6 - my story
Date: 11 Oct 2002 09:03:42 -0700
Message-ID: <3f47257d.0210110803.367a8c64@posting.google.com>

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. I think I'm almost done, then I'll open the floor to questions :-)

Now up - I'll continue with my life as an EO & what happened to make things start falling apart.

Just a few more tidbits of things that happened while I was an EO.

There was a staff member who was routing out, right about the time I transferred to HCO. He had already done his Sec Check & the ED was handling it, since there wasn't much of an HCO. This guy had some really horrible stuff come up in his Sec check - sex stuff that was just short of calling the police on him. Well, the ED decided to show this guy's pregnant wife the O/Ws. Talk about devastating to her.

She was trying to decide if she was going to divorce him - this decided it for her. I didn't really understand what was going on at the time, but I guess the ED decided that she didn't want the 2 of them married anymore - probably because he was routing off staff & she didn't want his wife to follow him. No chance of that happening no matter what - she was very gung-ho. I don't know her original feeling for wanting to divorce him - maybe it was because he was routing off.

But I had had the feeling that he was routing off so he could better support the new baby. These O/Ws were a complete shock to me, the auditor & the ED. She had no business showing them to the guy's wife, especially since she was pregnant. I sometimes wonder if the guy made them up. During Sec Checks you need to give some overts/withholds - you must have them, otherwise you wouldn't be leaving this wonderful group. Maybe he wanted to give overts so bad, we would have no intention of keeping him around. And we didn't. Most of the time, routing off staff takes forever - you need to find a replacement, write up your hat, etc,etc - no one on staff is going to help you leave staff. There's always a lot of resentment. Not this time - this guy was outta there fast. They got divorced. The wife held me responsible for the ED showing her the Sec Check for a long time - she said I should have stopped the ED. I should have - my only defense was that I was new to the post & figured the ED, who was very high on the bridge & very highly trained as well, knew was she was doing. But that's what I meant before when I said some people do use a person's O/Ws against them, and this was the first time I saw it.

Another time our main auditor blew. She just didn't show up for post one day. This was also when I was new (being new is no excuse, by the way. If you take the hat, you're fully responsible for wearing it &

getting stats up on day 1 - no case on post). I was called at my wog job, and expected to handle it. Oh great! Well, the Snr C/S tracked her down & we both met her there at lunch. We made all sorts of promises to her - about how she'd get better pay, more time off, etc.

Stuff that we really couldn't promise, but did, just so she'd get back to the org right away & start producing. Several other times I had to physically go to a staff member's house & handle them to get their butts back into the org - driving them myself if I had to. The problem was that we were so understaffed that even 1 person not showing up became a huge problem. It meant someone else had to do the work of that person's post as well as their own - and every staff member was so overburdened as it was. That's why, I think, there is so much guilt in leaving. You work with these people, they are your friends - you KNOW what's going to happen if you leave, and you don't want to do that to them. Of course, leaving to go into the SO is a much different story. You're still supposed to get a replacement &

stuff, but that rarely happens. People just go, because the SO is a 4th dynamic activity - they're clearing mankind. It's a very strange mindset to be a staff member in an org. You have a group of friends, but are they really your friends? At the time you're there, you think so. But then when someone leaves, the rumors start - "Oh, he reverted to drugs", "Oh, she couldn't hack being a staff member", "Oh, they got pregnant & had to leave the SO". As an EO, I tried to keep rumormongering to a minimum - as far as I was concerned, it was an SP act. I like to think I did a pretty good job, and at times, there was much less "noise" around. I'd do invests if I heard rumors...but then, maybe they just kept the rumors from me :-)

I became the HAS of the org - I don't really want to get into how right now, but suffice it to say, it wasn't completely of my own volition. But, like I said before, once you take the post, it's yours & you're expected to get the products from day one. So now, I'm still part time, I'm expected to: handle reception, handle hiring, handle getting all staff fully hatted (the 2 main stats of HCO are Number of Qualified Staff hired & Fully hatted staff), handle all the internal comm of the org, get letters out (to public), handle the telexes, handle distribution of new policies (ie mimeo - we had an old mimeo machine, but it didn't work. We weren't supposed to copy the stuff, especially HCOPLs and HCOBs - so how were we supposed to distribute it? I still have no idea - that usually just stacked up), handle letters coming in -

An aside here - thanks to all of you who send back entheta stuff in the postage paid envelopes! A big ACK from me. I don't remember seeing stuff about Xenu - if it looked too weird, I'd just throw it away. But do you know how annoying it is to hear you have a bunch of letters at the post office - have to pay for them, just to realize it's all a bunch of shit?! It really used to piss me off! But you know, it won't always get you off the mailing list. The reason?

Shortage of staff. Whenever someone would call in & ask to be removed, or we got a bunch of entheta with a return address, I'd send a note to CF (Central Files). But we almost never had anyone in there, so it would never get taken off.

OK, back to HAS duties: All that stuff plus the ethics stuff I had been handling before. It got ugly. We had numerous 339R programs coming in from management & all had to be done AT ONCE. There were tons of reports to fill out - every week. As HAS, I also got to sit on Ad Council, Exec Council & Financial Planning. Ad & Exec Councils are made up of all Dept/Div heads & they meet Thurs after 2pm to discuss the stats from last week & come up with BattlePlans for the next week. Financial Planning looks at the GI - then fills out this form sent by management - it lists out the exact percentages that get set aside for certain things - promo, $$ sent uplines, $$ sent to SO reserves, staff pay - so you fill that out & see what you've got left - to pay for such luxury items such as rent, electricity & phones.

I'm not kidding.

Oh, there's also this fun HCOPL that says that the HAS holds the LRH Comm post, if there's no LRH Comm - so I got that post as well. I learned how to do IA, Issue Authority, which let me approve local promo pieces to get sent out. I also could review local WISE group info packs & approve or disapprove them. I probably could still remember all the various trademarks, service marks & registered marks the church owns. This information comes in very useful in my day to day life now. Just another way Scientology helped me become more able. (yes, I'm joking)

So, I know you're all saying now, "gosh, you had such a wonderful life in this caring, loving group, why would you ever want to leave?"

It's funny - I did have a lot of wins on my auditing. I completely KNEW the tech was good. I left for the same reason so many other people leave. It's impossible to be a staff member.

At the end of Sept, beginning of Oct 1993, we were getting ready for the annual IAS event. We had a hall booked & were starting call in.

Suddenly, we get an order from management - ALL WUS (West US) orgs were to be closed (I think it was) Fri night - there would be no local IAS events - every staff member & every public was to go to LA. This was going to be bigger than the march on Portland (funny - I had heard about this, but never heard peep about the Wollersheim case. Just shows you the censorship that occurs within orgs). Management had an announcement to make that was so big, it required everyone to be there in person. Talk about a drag - how were we supposed to get our butts to LA? It's not like staff could afford a last minute plane ticket.

The orgs got permission to shut down after 2pm Thur & all day Fri, so staff could drive. I couldn't take that much time off my wog job, so again I shelled out bucks to fly to LA. Of course, many of our public didn't go either, although some did. I don't remember where it was, but only ½ of the place was being used. I got there a little late, the floor was filled, but most of the upper seating was empty. I very well remember Mr. Miscavige's story about "just stopping by" the IRS Commissioner's office & using Tone 40 to get in to see him, without an appointment. I remember him announcing, with great fanfare, that the war was over. I remember thinking, so what? I mean, it was a pretty good deal, but I couldn't understand why we had to be there for it. I guess it was for the promo - so they wouldn't have headless people. I flew back home that night thinking the whole thing was a complete waste of time & being very upset - because even tho the org had been closed, we were still expected to get our stats up - especially now.

Now everything was tax deductible, so GI stats should go soaring. I remember a bunch of SPDs coming out at that time, about paying taxes, staff pay, and other stuff. Prior to this, Scn had groups forming called CATS - Citizens for an Alternative Tax System. It wasn't just Scn, but others who opposed the IRS & taxes - they'd still pay their taxes, but they were working on getting the Tax system changed - flat tax, etc. These suddenly stopped, and were never talked about again.

And you'd be in deep doo-doo if you complained about the IRS from then on out.

An Amnesty also came out at this event - if you wrote up all your counter-intentions to Scientology, send them to the Dir I&R Int, you'd be forgiven.

There was a big push to get all the staff & public, plus any disaffected public to do this amnesty & continue on service. This is when I found out, that there really is no such thing as an amnesty in Scientology. Earlier, when I had had problems with my 2D, I had gone back to my parents house & partied with some old friends of mine.

When I say party - we drank a lot & smoked pot. Well, since pot is an illegal drug, in Scn-speak, I had reverted to drugs (never mind I only had a couple of hits - I had reverted). This made me out-qual'ed for HCO. But I managed to keep this overt hidden for quite a while. The amnesty came out & I believed I'd be forgiven for it. I wrote it up &

did get a response back from the Dir I&R Int that I had been forgiven, so I figured it was all ok. My original contract was also up about this time, so the org was trying to get me to sign a new one. I mentioned that I had been forgiven for the drug reversion, and wanted to know if I could still remain in HCO. The ED of the org, and the Snr HAS WUS, who happened to be in our org at the time, assured me that I could remain in HCO, and that they both would help in getting a new staff member who could be the HAS, so I could go back to the EO post. So I signed a new contract. I guess I had forgotten the mantra "say anything, just get the stats up". Well, I remained in HCO, but never got that help in hiring, and my crazy life continued. Many KRs were written up on me after this - and many of them mentioned my drug reversion & out-qual for HCO. I never knew how so many people found out about it - another case of using O/Ws against someone.

Two other people came in after hearing about the IRS win & amnesty.

They had been off the lines forever. They had just joined Scn in 1982, when the big mission holders conference came about & all the declares came down. Apparently, the mission they had joined split from management & was declared a squirrel group. These guys didn't know what was happening, they were new, so they stayed with that group & continued to get auditing & training. Eventually, they stopped going, and the group disbanded, although I guess 1 or 2 auditors still audited in the field. Well, these 2 people now wanted to come in &

get more auditing & training - they never really understood that they had belonged to a squirrel group. So they wrote up an amnesty & they got the "you are forgiven" letter from the Dir I&R Int. However, the amnesty doesn't forgive SPs or SP groups. Their names weren't on the declare list, neither was their auditor's name. The group was listed, but according to the people, it was disbanded. I sent many telexes to Dir I&R WUS & Int to find out what I should do - they told me to do a Comm Ev. Comm Evs take forever - you need to gather up all the evidence, publish an issue, and many other steps listed out in HCOPLs & the routing form. Then you need to send it uplines for approval.

It's incredibly hard to get approval on these things - every little detail needs to be correct & accounted for. It came back to me at least twice. Finally it got approval & we held the Comm Ev. Then the findings & recommendations also need to go uplines - those came back for correction twice. The whole thing took about 4 months. Finally I sent it up again - this time it came back with a reprimand - we should have NEVER had this Comm Ev, someone at Int said. These people were squirrels & belonged to an SP declared group & their only recourse is A-E.

I can't tell you how much this bugged me! We had spent all this time - and these people were paying money to the org & doing some courses &

one had signed a contract, all because we were told to do a Comm Ev.

THEY were never declared & this whole thing made no sense to me. They would have done A-E in the beginning, but we were told they didn't need to because they weren't SPs. Now we had to cut them off from the org, we weren't allowed to help them, except to give them the address of the Dir I&R Int so they could send their A-E petition to them.

This was one of the things that opened my eyes to the real Scientology. Here are good people who want to help & suddenly, by some unknown person in "management", the whole thing get derailed.

The other things that had happened - I'd write KRs, or other reports, and believed them when they said they'd look at them & fix problems.

But this time, I had been in contact with management the whole time &

done everything standardly & it got totally screwed over. That's when I decided that someone near the top really didn't care about Scientology.

This got a little long, so I'll post it now.

Next time - the final straws & getting out...

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