PART 1: How Did I Ever Get Involved Posted 1-30-96 PART 2: My First "Reg Cycle" Posted 2-6-96 PART 3: My Ordeal Begins Posted 3-26-96

PART 4: The Trap Slams Shut

By the end of my second day I had already begun to have bad feelings about the mission. Under ordinary circumstances I would have gone in and demanded my money back or at the very least decided to cut my losses and just not go back -- BUT THESE WERE NOT ORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES. I was in constant, terrible pain and Amy promised me ABSOLUTELY that they would cure me. I was clinging to that promise!

I lived almost 40 miles away from the mission so I knew it was going to be quite a commute. I told myself that I could, "tough it out for the six short months that it would take to go 'clear.'" I really believed that in less than 6 months I would be this pain free, almost superhuman being with a perfect memory who would never get sick again. I also believed that I had become involved in an organization where I would eventually be able to help others. With all these aspirations in my head six months of long commutes didn't seem like that big a price to pay. I believed all these things because Amy Tuttle "the reg" (the salesperson) had PROMISED me these things.

SCIENTOLOGY -- A WORLD OF UNCERTAINTY

Right from the first day and all the time that I was at the S.F. mission I never once had "the bridge" or for that matter anything else explained to me. I never once knew what we were going to do, what exactly I was going to learn in the indoctrination room or what thought reforming processes they were going to run on me. I never once knew what was coming up or what to expect. Just as in my first reg cycle I could never get a straight answer out of any of the staff members. God knows I tried!

For example when I asked Carol, the person in charge of scheduling auditing sessions, what my schedule would be she just laughed at me and said, "Your going up the bridge aren't you? Don't worry about it." There I was trying my best to get everything arraigned ahead of time so I knew what was expected of me. That way I would have some stability. When I know what to expect it's so much easier to take responsibility for my actions and maintain control. I found that this constant uncertainty always kept me off balance. This uncertainty allowed them to get me to do things that I ordinarily never would have done.

For example Sarah Baxter would often call me up at work and tell me that I had to hurry up and come in for a session. Often I wasn't even "sessionable" and I told her so. She just kept insisting saying, "We really want to deliver services to you, we really want to see you make gains." I would almost always fall for her appeals. I would take time off work to go all the way in only to be too sick or tired to really be "in session." I did it because she sounded so sincere on the phone and I didn't want to let her down. I did it because I really believed they were trying to help me.

Years later I realized that she would always call me on a Tuesday or Wednesday when their stats were down and they had to hurry and get them up before Thursday. To them any time that I spent in the chair "on the cans" was good. I was once even told by Timothy Baxter that, "ANY auditing is better than no auditing." He was admitting to me that whether I was too sick or tired didn't matter to them. It eventually became clear that "any auditing" was good for THEM, it got THEIR stats up. In the end that's all they ever cared about -- getting their stats up.

While I was at the mission almost all my decisions were based on false or incomplete information. I was forced to filled in all the blanks myself based on past experiences elsewhere and what THEY were telling me at the time. Because of this I ended up making so many erroneous assumptions.

Since I could never get any answers or facts out of any staff members my hazy understanding was that I was to go in session every evening during the week and then on weekends. When I wasn't in session I would be "on course" learning such things as how to communicate and get along better with others. The promise of acquiring these skills was important to me so it kept me going back on course even though I was becoming very frustrated with the way things were being run up there.

THEIR FIRST RECRUITMENT ATTEMPT

I had been in $cientology only a couple of days when I was unexpectedly called down to the basement to see the ethics officer, Debbie Scanlon. I wasn't with her more than a minute or two when she abruptly said, "Wayne, you NEED to join staff." I said, "What? I don't know anything about $cientology yet, I just started. Isn't this a little premature?" She responded with, "Oh we'll teach you everything you need to know." To me it seemed rather irresponsible to just jump in and join an organization that I knew nothing about. I didn't know what they believed or anything about them. It seemed like an irresponsible thing to do so I said, "No."

She pushed harder. "Wayne it's your RESPONSIBILITY to help us spread $cientology." I explained to her that I just started, that I already had a job, that I was still very sick and that I lived very far away. I told her that I didn't feel that it would be appropriate for me to join staff then, maybe later. When I was involved with a group in Boulder Creek I had learned never to make promises or commitments unless I REALLY intended to keep them. I didn't want to make commitments that I knew I wouldn't be able to keep.

She kept pushing and pushing and pushing for me to join staff. Finally I got angry and said, "Look, I've already got a job, I'm very sick, and I'm not joining staff and that's that." I resented the way she kept trying to force HER WILL onto me. I walked out of the room very angry but I rationalized away this negative encounter. A part of me wanted to believe that she saw positive characteristics in me that would make me useful to society. I've always wanted to feel useful, that I had some value to others so this kind of attention fed that desire and made me feel needed. As I left the room another part of me was also saying, "Wayne it's only your 'bank' that's making you angry, don't listen to it." I wouldn't realize until years later that Hubbard and Amy had successfully implanted that idea in my head. That idea was to take on a life of it's own and successfully undermine every critical thought that I had which made me anxious or angry.

Intellectually it seemed that the most rational thing for me to do was to move up the bridge as quickly as possible, to get the gains they promised me, the ones that I had already paid for. I figured that once I got healthy and more able then I would be even more useful to them. I was confused as to why Debbie couldn't see the logic in my argument. Why was she rushing me? I figured that if the tech worked why not give me a chance to get better first?

As Hubbard said in his policy letter Keeping Scientology Working, "If they enrolled, they're aboard; and if they're aboard, they're here on the same terms as the rest of us - win or die in the attempt." Because I walked in their front door that very first day they just ASSUMED that I "was aboard." They acted accordingly. I had no way of knowing that when I first walked in their door that they ALREADY had plans to turn me into one of Hubbard's slaves.

SOME MORE PERSONAL BACKGROUND

My whole life, until the mid 80's, I had been introverted and shy. The more I tried to figure out WHY, by myself, the more I would introvert and the worse I would get.

Then in the mid 80's I met this group in Boulder Creek. For the first time I was in an environment where I was safe to tell another person EVERYTHING. I was finally free to tell someone all my deepest, darkest little secrets, all the stupid little things that I felt that if anyone ever found out about that I would just die.

For example I told them how I'd be walking down the sidewalk and when I saw someone approaching me from the opposite direction I would "react" and start to tense up. I'd immediately begin thinking thoughts like, "Should I look at them? Should I say Hi? What if they don't say 'Hi' back -- won't *I* look stupid." This tension would reach its peak just as the person was passing. Because of this "reaction" I'd almost always end up looking away pretending that I didn't even see them. As they passed I'd kind of relax but go off cursing myself for reacting like such a jerk.

Another example I told them about was how I always felt so awkward and self-conscious standing in the grocery store check-out line. I confessed how in that situation I always felt like everyone was watching me.

In Boulder Creek I was able to open up and reveal all these inner secrets to someone else. It was amazing how in just a few minutes they could get me to see exactly what *I* was doing, mentally, to make myself REACT the way I did. The sudden feeling of relief I got when I was finally able to tell someone all these things was just incredible. I eventually labeled this sudden feeling of relief as a "spiritual orgasm." Once I said these things out loud to someone else, I could take responsibility for them and I instantly felt so much better. Each time I was able to do this I would always become more outgoing, more productive and more "myself." Once all this mental stuff was out in the open for me to see then THEY left it completely up to me whether I wanted to keep doing those things or not. In Boulder Creek my self-determinism was gradually being restored.

To me all these subconscious thoughts WERE my "reactive mind." I would find myself in a particular situation and just automatically think these thoughts and I would introvert. I didn't know why. To me these thoughts WERE the things that were making me react in non-optimum ways. All these things that I was doing RIGHT THEN, just below my conscious level of awareness, were the real things that were holding me back in life. I've always been fairly successful but it was all these stupid little thoughts, thoughts that I just couldn't make go away by myself, that were holding me back. In Boulder Creek we dealt with and handled these things. In Boulder Creek this subconscious "reactive mind" became VERY real for me.

Now Hubbard comes along and talks about my "bank" and my "reactive mind." He tells me that this is what's making me act in non-optimum ways, that it's all the stuff that's going on just under my conscious level of awareness. Now Hubbard comes along and tells me that only me AND another person (the auditor) are bigger than my bank. Now Hubbard comes along and tells me if I try to figure it out by myself that I'll just drive myself deeper into my bank and get worse. All these ideas fit right in with what I had already experienced in B.C.. Because of my lack of knowledge of $cientology and the fact that they were telling me things that I could agree with I assumed that auditing would be just like what we did in Boulder Creek, only this time more scientific, more exact, and 100% effective. After all that's what Hubbard kept telling me.

At the beginning I believed that my auditor and I would start my Life Repair Program and that we would just keep going back in session until I got the results they promised. I believed this because Amy had given me the impression that we would. When I handed over that first check to Amy I had no idea that they were going to charge me BY THE HOUR and that if they didn't deliver what they promised that I would HAVE to keep paying them more and more money until I finally DID attest to whatever they wanted me to. If I had known THAT Amy never would have gotten that first check out of me. I had paid for RESULTS, not worthless "stats" for them.

MY AUDITING BEGINS

The BIG day finally arrived and I was finally taken into session. I was excited. My sister had been telling me of all the "big wins" (life transforming cognitions about life) that she was having. As I walked to the auditing room I just couldn't wait to start having some of my own. I just couldn't wait to experience my first "spiritual orgasm" in $cientology. After all I had just paid a lot of money, now I felt they were going to start delivering the miracles they promised me.

After the auditor took care of the preliminaries such as making sure that I was comfortable, that I was well rested, that I was well fed, we started. The auditor looked right at me and said in a loud voice, "THIS IS THE SESSION."

The very next thing she did was start asking me the questions, "What's the definition of the word 'where', 'which', 'the','these','those' and 'case'?" Words like these were just fired at me with no context whatsoever. Just as on course if I couldn't immediately quote a 'dictionary' definition for them or my definition didn't match exactly what the auditor wanted to hear she would drag out a dictionary and I would have to "clear" each and every one of them.

Clearing a word meant I had to go through each definition of that word, one at a time. I had to read each definition, say what it meant in my own words, and then make up sentences until I "fully understood it." A lot of the words like "when", "the", and "what " have many definitions so this started to get quite time consuming. After going through the definitions I then had to clear all the idioms and derivations. Often the auditor would have to look in several different dictionaries before she could find these. This would sometimes take 5 - 10 minutes while I just sat there waiting only to find out that the word came from "Old English" or some such nonsense. She would then look at me with a straight face and say, "Do you understand that?"

This mindless word clearing exercise dragged on hour after hour, day after day, week after week, all at hundreds of dollars an hour. When we first started this 'word clearing' I thought, "This will take just an hour or so then we'll get to the REAL reason I am here." As it turned out it just went on and on.

As we continued my frustration kept mounting. I began to wonder," How is spending hundreds of dollars an hour clearing words going to make me a better person? I did NOT pay all my money just to do this." Whenever I expressed my frustrations to the auditor all she would reply with were things like," Would you like to make up more sentences for that word" or "Is there some word in the definition that you don't fully understand?" If I expressed my frustrations out of session all I got were things like," God Wayne you look great. Auditing is really doing wonders for you." Once I was even totally invalidated by Debbie when she asserted," Some people have big wins in word clearing." When I responded with, "WELL I'M NOT! WHY CAN'T ANYONE HEAR ME?" The response I got back was," WOW, I really like your jacket."

BACK ON COURSE

While my "Life Repair" auditing was going on I was working through the course "How to Improve Relationships with Others." Everything seemed like common sense to me but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to review the basics. After all I just knew that soon I would be getting to the GOOD stuff, the stuff that "life was made of." After all, that's what Hubbard kept telling me.

So far everything on the course was stuff I pretty much could agree with -- UNTIL -- I ran into something called "The Third Party Law."

In it Hubbard states (IN CAPITAL LETTERS)

"A THIRD PARTY MUST BE PRESENT AND UNKNOWN IN EVERY QUARREL FOR A CONFLICT TO EXIST."

OR

"FOR A QUARREL TO OCCUR, AN UNKNOWN THIRD PARTY MUST BE ACTIVE IN PRODUCING IT BETWEEN TWO POTENTIAL OPPONENTS."

Then later Hubbard states things like, "In marital quarrels the correct approach for anyone counseling is to get both parties to carefully search out the THIRD party." In the next paragraph he states, "Sometimes two parties, quarreling, suddenly decide to elect a person to blame. This stops the quarrel."

I WAS STUNNED! My immediate reaction was, "WHAT? Hubbard's telling me to ALWAYS blame a 'third party' for any disagreements I have with someone?" This went totally contrary to everything that I believed at the time. In Boulder Creek I learned how to communicate. In Boulder Creek I learned to take responsibility for all conflicts and disagreements. Down there I learned to find out what the other person was REALLY saying FIRST. Only then could I know what I WAS disagreeing with. Only then was it possible to come to some kind of understanding with the other person and resolve the conflict. This approach had proven very effective for me and had greatly improved my relationships with others. Now Hubbard was telling me that instead of doing that to just find someone else to blame and that all my troubles would immediately go away? This bizarre idea upset me a lot.

SUPPRESSED INTO SILENCE

I had no one to talk to about my frustrations and concerns. In and out of the course room I was never allowed to talk to anyone about my disagreements with Hubbard. I certainly couldn't talk to anyone at home or at work. For one thing no one had any idea what I was involved in so I felt that no one would understand. Why should I bother trying?

For another thing, I learned to never try to get anyone involved in anything unless I REALLY believed in it myself FIRST. I didn't believe in $cientology. I had seen no benefits as of yet therefore I felt that I shouldn't even talk about it outside the mission. I felt that I should see if it worked first before I talked to anyone about it. I also made the assumption that if I even mentioned $cientology they would think that I was trying to recruit them (into something that I didn't believe in). I was waiting to see positive results first. I was trying to maintain my integrity about all this so again I said nothing. To me that was the ethical thing to do.

Another source of suppression was that a part of me wanted to believe that I had made the right decision in spending all that money to join Scientology in the first place. I was afraid that if someone found out that I was involved they would make fun of me. I would have felt like such a fool, especially since I paid all that money without first checking Scientology's claims out. I just couldn't face the humiliation of someone showing me how stupid I had been so again I said nothing to anyone.

All of these obstacles and internal conflicts kept me silent, just at the time when I should have been talking the most.

THE CHAINS THAT BIND

At the same time I also knew that I had already spent several thousand dollars and that I still had some on account. I felt that I couldn't just walk away from all that money. I just HAD to get something in return for the money I paid them. I HAD to give them a chance to deliver what they promised. Besides, I still desperately WANTED all the benefits Amy promised me.

I also wanted to be able to believe in someone again. I wanted so much to be able to confide in others just like I had been able to do in Boulder Creek. I wanted so much to have back what I had down there.

While all this was happening I kept hearing my sister talk about all the big wins she was having. I saw how excited she was each time she came out of session. I watched her personality changing right before my very eyes. As I watched her personality change I figured there just HAD to be something of value in "the tech." I slowly began to believe that it was JUST ME causing all my difficulties. After all didn't they keep tell me that if *I* wasn't making progress that it was because *I* was doing something wrong or that *I* had done something evil that I just couldn't confront?

In B.C. I had learned to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings and actions. This way of dealing with life had produced so many positive changes in me. Because of all my life transforming experiences down there I kept trying to do the same thing in Scientology. In so doing I inadvertently fell right into the trap of blaming myself for all my failures in Scientology. Ways of effectively dealing with life that had worked so well for me everywhere else were now working against me. I didn't realize this was happening at the time.

On top of all that I was still clinging desperately to the hope that $cientology would take away the agonizing pain that I was in. After all didn't they promise me that the "tech" worked on everyone 100% of the time? I just HAD to continue. What else could I do? They told me it was my "ONE LAST CHANCE TO BE HEALED AND TO GO TOTALLY FREE"!

These were the chains that that were holding me. These were the chains that encouraged me to rationalize, "I'll just SECRETLY disagree with THIS ONE concept - this one 'Third Party Law.' Everything else from here on out MUST be good, MUST be life transforming, MUST be leading me down the road to total freedom." After all, that's what Hubbard kept telling me.

THE TRAP SLAMS SHUT!