First Post From Alanzo

Hi there.

I'm an Ex-Scientologist.

Often, in your mid-to-late 40's, the flotsam and jetsam of your earlier life washes back on your shores, and you must sort through it the best you can.

I was in Scientology for 16 years, reached the state of "Clear", and was on staff in Scientology organizations around the country.

I will tell my stories of my Scientology experiences on this blog.

I'll do my best to make it entertaining and understandable.

Hope ya like it....

Alanzo

I was a Scientologist

March 6th, 1981.

My story begins in an L-shaped room on Green Street in Champaign, IL. It was an L-shaped room because it was the corner of a hallway in an old house on campus that had been cut up into student apartments. It was literally a corner with a door on it. Inside the door was a place to hang my clothes. At the corner was a desk with a little refrigerator underneath. And around the corner was my bed, with a table hanging over, and a 13 inch black and white TV on top, with foil on the antennae for improved reception.

I told my friends that I did not want to be disturbed, that I was going in alone, and that I would not be coming out for the rest of the night, so don't call and don't come over.

I sat in my little room on my bed, anticipating my newest quest: I had just taken two hits of Microdot, a form of LSD, that came in little round pellets.

My mission was to take this acid and write down everything I thought. In this way, moving from one state of consciousness to another, I felt that I might catch a common denominator between the two, and thus distill a little bit of truth out of my existence.

The rest is taken verbatim from my handwritten notes at the time.

"5:55pm. Walter Cronkite is about to come back from a commercial break and say he is retiring, and I just took two hits of acid.'

"Walter said that this 'passing of the baton' is just him giving up his seat to another man. Nothing will change. Old anchormen don't fade away, they just keep coming back for more.'

"6:69pm. The back of my throat and my cheeks are beginning to feel 'anxious'. It almost feels like the roof of my mouth and the back of my neck wants to yawn and rid itself of the tension. It's not an unpleasant tension, it's almost an anticipatory tension that I don't want to be relieved. My spine seems like it's 'coming alive'. (I'm starting to note it in my sensory field)'

"7:00pm. I am getting tingles and shivers. My lips and tongue feel a little like I'm licking the top of a battery. I feel tense - but when I move, I'm reminded that I'm not. I'm farting quite a bit, too. The tension I feel can be described as the tension felt right before orgasm - without the intense pleasure sensation. (This is because of the lack of all the pleasure nerves in the other parts of the body that exist in the genitals.)'

"7:20pm. The anxiety and tension I feel is not so pleasant right now. I feel a little nauseous and I can tell my digestive system is working extensively. It is only through movements of various parts of my body that relieves this constant tension. So I'm rocking and tapping my feet a lot as I write. '

"7:28pm. I am aware that my digestive system is working. It feels out of balance.'

"Everything is in my sensory field right now. I am constantly moving around and fidgeting. It's hard to even complete a thought on this piece of paper because it takes so long to write. Yes, I'm moving around quite a bit as I sit. The TV can be very annoying at times.'

"7:39pm. I can not stop jerking or moving my legs. I can stop when I want to but I want to keep them moving. There is no doubt that this drug is working on my spine and lower brain. Same sensations as before. The sensation is like right before orgasm with no tension release. Nerve Gas!'

"7:42pm. The high inaudible scream that TVs emit is quite evident now. I also hear a reverberating tone coming from my TV. When I switch channels it goes away.'

"7:48pm. The nausea is gone now and I'm smiling a lot. The only smell I can smell is like either a skunk or a sour body odor. My spine feels quite good. The paper is breathing. Those things directly in my concentration are clear but those outside are furry and glowing and breathing. I can see flashes of color on this page.'

"7:58pm. I feel good right now though not "satisfied". Visual hallucinations. The shadows intensify in their shades and contrasts. At the borders. Where everything exists. I can immerse myself in anything I want. Tapping on a lamp or watching shadows breathe, etc. Shivers. Sensual.'

"8:34pm. I haven't noticed the the TV in quite a while. Boss Hogg is on. The Dukes of Hazzard. So many thoughts are whirling around it seems. I can't catch one and put it here. I am sweating. '

"9:10pm. Lights and shades are changing always.'

"12:49am. I'm done now, I think. I feel as if all the world was taken away, real quick, and in that void I looked around and saw how everything really was/is. Nothing matters. We are creatures of the senses. We see things of a sensual and erotic nature all around us every day. Whatever will fill up the senses is what we're looking for. Loud Rock-n-Roll. Pornography. What I have found though is that writing this down is telling another what I have experienced. All that matters is that I find someone to tell these things to. I need somebody to love. Love is the only thing that matters."

OK. That's it.

That was my first attempt at the scientific discovery of my existence.

I went in, alone, and this is what I came out with. It would not be the first time that a quest like this would come up short of what you had hoped for. But the scientific research of existence is a hit and miss kind of thing, isn't it?

My quest would take me from Champaign, IL, to Cairo, Egypt, to Jerusalem, the Sinai Desert, to Athens, to Casablanca, and back to Champaign. And then, finally to a mission, on John Street, and down into a dank basement.... with a Dianetics book in my hand.

Going In

The Champaign, IL Mission of the Church of Scientology was in the basement of a house that had been converted into businesses on the edge of downtown.

Through a screen door, you descended a flight of stairs that turned into a small, dank room with a used green couch, a beat up desk, and some bookcases. I later learned that the couch was Division 6 of the organization. The desk was Division 7, and the bookcase was Division 2.

Connie stood at the bottom of the stairs and greeted me. I stood there with a Dianetics book in my hand, breathing heavily. I had just ridden over on my bike, once I had gotten the courage to go in, and I'm pretty sure I had a determined, almost driven, look on my face.

I looked at her intently and said, "This is the most fascinating book I've ever read, but I'm not going to join any fucking cult!"

She laughed.

This was probably the best response I could have gotten from her. Had she been insulted, scared, angry, or even confused, I would have turned around and walked out. But she laughed. So I stayed.

We talked for at least two hours, which was perfect. There was no one else in the mission. The phone did not ring, no one else bothered us. It was exactly what I needed: to talk to somebody about my life and my problems. We talked about my dad and how much we fought. I told her about my ex-girlfriend and even how lonely I was. I said that I believed in past lives and I asked her:

"Do Scientologists believe in God?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I believe in God. And I believe that you can have a direct connection with God without the need for Priests, or Ministers or anything else."

Having checked my answer in order to decide how to respond appropriately, Connie said, "Of Course Scientologists believe in God!" She took me over to show me the Creed of the Church of Scientology, which had GOD written all over it. She told me about the 8th Dynamic which was how Scientologists referred to God, she said.

Then we talked about L Ron Hubbard. She called him "Ron". She told me what a great writer and world traveler he was. A barnstorming pilot, etc.

I told her that I was a world traveler, too - I had returned from a 14 month trip overseas, backpacking through Egypt, Israel, Greece and Morocco. Her eyes were wide with excitement and admiration, "Wow!" she said. She seemed fascinated with me and in my stories, beliefs, and experiences. She made me feel like I was one of the smartest, most interesting people in the world. Then she tried to sell me a book called "Self Analysis" by L Ron Hubbard.

I said I didn't have any money and she backed off.

I left that day with a lot of hope. I was supposed to come back and listen to a tape.

I was a very depressed kid in my early 20's at the time, sick of my life and sick of all the hypocrisy and materialism I saw in the world. Martin Luther King had been assassinated when I was 8 years old. I could never figure out who could ever do such a thing, and what kind of a world did we live in if that's how we are going to act? I got the impression that some day, through Dianetics, I may be able to understand that, and everything else, too.

For some reason Connie was very interested in the kinds of drugs I had taken, and was very detailed in her questions about them. I told her everything, and that I was sick of drugs, and had read in Carlos Castenada how the shaman Don Juan had only used drugs on him in the beginning to get him to "stop the world" so that he could see what he needed to see later on.

Connie said that if I truly wanted to have a better connection with God, then I could probably have a lot better one if I was not doing drugs. That seemed to make a lot of sense to me.

I went home, did a bong, and thought about it.

Diagnosis and Sales

I started my first course in Scientology on July 4th, 1984. My abysmal Free Personality Test results, plus the conversations I had with Connie, provided the ironclad scientific proof necessary to determine that I was PTS. I was a "Potential Trouble Source". I was trouble to my friends, to myself, and possibly trouble to the Church, too. I "rollercoastered" which meant that I went up and down emotionally, and it also meant that I could lose my gains in Scientology. I needed to be stabilized.

So I purchased the "Ups and Downs in Life Course" and started immediately.

I come from an upper-middle class white family. My father and I were constantly fighting, ever since I was a little boy. While working on the furnace in the basement, he would always have me hold the flashlight, and I would never do it right. And so I would throw the flashlight down and storm off. Or he would come in to help me put a kite together because I wasn't doing it right, and he often broke the wooden parts of the kite. I would blow up and storm off.

And now, since I was a good-for-nothing college drop out, working as a janitor at a bank and partying like an alley cat, we were fighting pretty regularly.

My First Success Applying Scientology

In the early to mid-1980's, the Ups and Downs in Life Course in Scientology had practical exercises at the end of it. To graduate, a student had to apply what he had learned on the course to whoever came up on it.

The course taught me that the reason I was going up and down emotionally, and the reason I was a "Potential Trouble Source", was because I was connected to someone who was invalidating me or my goals in life. It taught me about "Social" and "Anti-Social" personalities. It talked about evaluation and invalidation, about "granting beingness" to others. And it taught me that when you have someone who is invalidating you, and acting like a "suppressive person" to you and your goals in life, you must either "handle", or "disconnect" from them.

My dad was the biggest source of invalidation in my life. Nothing I did was right to him.

And so my handling was to go home to my parent's house for the weekend and NOT get into a fight with my dad. We used role playing. First, they asked me what types of things my dad would say to me that would set me off. Then they sat across from me, acting like my father saying those things to me until I could control my reactions and not let it get to me. They called this "flattening my buttons" on him. It was actually very therapeutic, and really a lot of fun.

And, it was many hours of work from a lot of staff for $50 (the cost of the course back then) It really helped me to be able to sit across from someone and do all that.

When I got to my parent's house that night, it had been a typical Friday for me. I had been out at the bars all night and I snuck in at about 2:30am.

Everyone was asleep. Excellent.

I turned on the TV in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator: One of my mom's famous meatloafs displayed herself right back at me. As I took it out this luscious thing and placed it on the counter, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and a throat clearing which sent the alarm waves out that my father was approaching.

Shit! I'm fucked up as hell! I've been drinking all night and I have to apply my Scientology course to my dad now! Oh God. Not now! I'm starting to get a stomach ache. I went over the things in my mind I needed to apply: Grant Beingness, no evaluation or invalidation, don't take up any entheta...OK.

There he is. He's entered the kitchen. I cut a slice of meat loaf and put the rest away in the refrigerator, being careful to re-cover it like I'm supposed to. My dad sits down at the kitchen table and starts watching TV.

My father was born in the South in the 1920's. He lived in Birmingham, Alabama when Martin Luther King first began the civil rights movement there. My father was a staunch Reagan Man. I was a member of the Communist Party.

I say hello and sit down with him.

I dig into the meat loaf. It was sooo good. Plus, it gave me something to do instead of having to talk to him. There was some kind of news show on TV. A documentary or something. I could not believe it at the time, but it just so happened to be a documentary on the Civil rights movement, and yep, there's a picture of Martin Luther King on the screen.

My father looked at me. "There's that nigger." he said.

I looked down at my plate and took the next big bite of my meatloaf.

"I said...There's that NIGGER!"

My head was starting to hurt now, along with my stomach. I looked up.

"Have you tried this meatloaf? It's excellent."

"Yes I have. It is good.... Where were you, tonight?"

"Went down to JJ's Saloon, saw Brad and Kelly."

"Partyin' again?"

"Yes. I had a good time. Jimmy Kerrick says hi."

"Oh. He's an all right kid."

"Yeah, he is."

Then, my dad got up from the table and went back upstairs to bed.

I dropped my fork. I couldn't believe that I had made it through that! My stomach hurt and my head was splitting, but I had successfully gotten through something I never was able to do before.

I had NOT gotten into a fight with my dad!

And the Hits Just Keep On Comin'

There was a phone on the floor of my old bedroom that had a broken ringer. For years, whenever someone called our house, and I was in my bedroom, I always had to listen through the bedroom wall to the phone in the other room to tell when when the phone was ringing.

I have no idea why, but this next morning I got up to see if I could fix it.

I shut the door to be able to work in peace. My dad was home and I was avoiding him to make sure that my "win" from the night earlier lasted.

I got out a philips screw driver and took the cover off the phone. I could NOT believe it - as soon as I had done this, he came into my room.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing my phone."

"Here, let me see that." He literally grabbed the screwdriver out of my hand.

I glared at him.

Then I looked down at the phone and said, "It's that wire right there. It needs to go over underneath that screw." He tried to yank it over.

I said, "Here. I'll hold the wire, and you screw it in."

He did.

"Call Mr. Boeh (our neighbor) and have him call us to see if it worked."

I did, and when Mr. Boeh called back, my phone rang. I jumped for joy.

My dad was looking at me. "What's that course you're doing?"

"Scientology"

"It's good. I think it's good for you. You need it." Then he walked out.

I collapsed on my bed. I HAD JUST FIXED A PHONE WITH MY DAD!

This was a miracle. This was something that was really really bothering me - my relationship with my father - and I applied Scientology and it worked! It had shown me a way to improve something in my life that had been impossible to improve before.

I cried for two hours.

Continued Success in Scientology

My next course was the Hubbard Qualified Scientologist (HQS) Course.

Now, this HQS course is not the one the Church delivers today. This HQS course contained all the communication drills that you pay thousands of dollars for in Scientology called "TRs", or Training Routines. It also had actual Scientology counseling on it, the kind you pay tens of thousands of dollars for today, called "The Objectives" and even some of the "ARC Straightwire" processes on it. It taught you some of Hubbard's "Study Technology" and all kinds of other things that people coming in to Scientology usually never get because they run screaming from the place before it ever gets offered to them.

The HQS course only cost $500. I was so excited from the successes I had from my Ups and Downs in Life Course, and I was so sure that Scientology could help me create a better life for myself, that I was easily convinced to take out a loan from the bank I worked for to buy it.

For this course, I needed a twin, or a person who I studied the course with and applied the counseling to, and who would apply it back to me on a turn-about basis. When I showed up for my first day, my twin was there. He was a kid my age, a star gymnast, it turned out, on the U of I gymnastics team. His name was Charles Lakes.

Charles had read Dianetics and had actually audited someone else. I was very impressed by this. Connie said that he was a very good auditor. I immediately felt the competitive urge to finish reading the Dianetics book and audit someone else, too, just to make sure that I was not lagging. And anyway, if Charles was a good auditor, I was going to be an even better one.

We were perfect twins for each other. Charles was from Southern California, and was one of the first black gymnasts in the country. He NOT a straight-arrow jock by any means. We both believed that Scientology was the most vital thing in our lives. We had many very similar viewpoints and interests.

The course took us 9 months to get through. At the end of it, I was a Scientologist. And Charles was one of my best friends. I had quit smoking pot, and all drugs, and had stopped partying so much. I had gotten a new job as a salesman and was making more money. I was much more stable and in control of my own life. I was a lot happier.

But before I had fully completed the HQS course, I was told that I needed to have some auditing on the EMeter. I was told that I needed a "Life Repair" and that could only be delivered by the mission in Peoria, IL because they had 3 very highly trained auditors there, George, his son Andy, and Andy's wife Cyndi.

My First Real Operating Thetan

The Church of Scientology, Mission in Peoria, IL was much bigger than the mission in Champaign. The Peoria mission was in a 6,000 square foot storefront on Main street. It had a huge bookstore, a huge courseroom, a full Qualifications area, 10 counseling rooms, an Examiner's booth, a Communications Nerve Center, Executive offices, and even a sauna in the back to deliver the Purification Rundown.

George was the Mission Holder. He was, at that time, a "New OT 7" and a Class 8 auditor. George's office walls were filled with all his certificates in Scientology.

In my first meeting with him, before he entered his office and I was in there alone, I browsed a few of them on his wall. The first Cert I saw was "Hubbard Dianetic Auditor" dated June of 1950, signed by L. Ron Hubbard. Since the Dianetics book itself was published in May of 1950, George had, in fact, been one of the first auditors on the planet and had worked directly with L Ron Hubbard.

I found out that he had been running this mission in Peoria, IL since 1954.

Another cert on his wall was "CLEARED THETA CLEAR". I had just read "A History of Man" recently, as well as "Scientology 8-80" where it talked about the abilities of someone who had reached "Cleared Theta Clear". They could read your thoughts and project mental image pictures into your mind. They could leave their body at will and travel anywhere they wanted. When their body died, they wouldn't. They could "postulate" whatever they wanted to come into existence, and it would.

And they could find the exact thing that was wrong with you, the stuff you could never see because it was unconscious and hidden from you, and they could free you from it.

I was in awe.

Scientology Saved My Life

George is a short man, a little shorter than me, even. At that time he was in his late fifties and gray. He always had a smile on his face, with his eyes half closed. He looked like Yoda.

Andy, his son, was also a Class 8 auditor and C/S. He'd been in Scientology since the late 1960's, having grown up in Scientology. Andy was a great guy, always happy, always laughing. Always helping. Cyndi, Andy's wife, was from Los Angeles. They had met while studying the upper levels of Scientology there. Cyndi was a Class 6 auditor. She was very sweet. They were all the most helpful and the most welcoming people I had ever met.

These were the people who were going to repair my life for me.

I was beginning to get the idea that Scientology was the way out for me. I had begun to feel that my life was going absolutely nowhere, as, up to that time, I had been living it mostly from the top of a bar stool. My prospects for life were looking very thin to me, and I was not happy with the way things were going. In fact, I was very, very depressed.

When I look back on it now, from this perspective, I can say that Scientology saved my life. And these people - Connie, Charles, George, Andy, Cyndi and others, saved it.

Or else, I let them save it.

Or else, I paid them money and I took what they sold to me and changed my life with it for the better.

Or, I needed a big change in my life that gave me a new direction, and hope that my future would be better than my present.

Or, Scientology gave me the excuse to change. And so I did.

Or whatever - Scientology Saved My Life!

Corn-Fed Scientologists

Scientologists in the Midwest are very few and far between.

Even though the Champaign Mission had probably 20,000 names in their mailing list, they were mostly names of college students who had temporarily lived in the area and moved away when they graduated. And yet L Ron Hubbard's policy letter called "GROSS INCOME, SENIOR DATUM" said that, in order to make money as an organization, it was always the number of names in central files, and the number of letters and mailings sent to those names that DETERMINED the gross income of a Scientology organization.

So Cary, the Commanding Officer of Scientology Missions International for the Eastern United States, would SCREAM on the phone to get all his Mission Holders and staff to send mailings EVERY WEEK to their mailing lists. When all the thousands of returns would come back, representing all that wasted money, he would just SCREAM for more. Because Gross Income Senior Datum by L. Ron Hubbard said what it said.

A later mission holder would be severely disciplined before a Committee of Evidence for destroying the Champaign Mission's mailing list. I've spoken to him about it since, and I believe that it was probably the most sensible thing that could have been done. He had to go down for it. But at least he spared the future staff of all that Gross Income going down the toity from applying L Ron Hubbard's GROSS INCOME SENIOR DATUM.

When I was on course at the Champaign Mission in the mid-1980's, there were two part time staff there - Connie, the Mission Holder, and Zach, the auditor/course supervisor. In the year or so that I was a regular public there, I met probably 10 other people who would self-identify as a Scientologist.

Because there are so few Scientologists in the Midwest, they have a lot to live up to if they are ever going to get any new people. They have to live up to Midwestern ideals and standards: They can't ever be arrogant or elitist, they can't charge a lot of money, they can't be too intrusive into others' lives, and they have to believe reasonable things - not whacked-out wierdo shit - ever. So you can see why Scientology has a hard time in the Midwestern United States.

As a result, missions had to be pretty reasonable places on the plains of Illinois in the 1980's if they were ever going to get and keep anybody. And for a kid like me, who needed more discipline and a greater purpose, and fewer drugs and less alcohol, they were a haven for the new life I was creating for my self.

I was on the Quad one day and the U of I and I looked over and saw Connie, the sweetest woman ever, standing there by herself, handing out fliers to a passing stream of students. The communications skills she learned from her TRs courses in Scientology were IN, and she handed each flyer out to each individual thetan with INTENTION. She got about 1 in 5 people to take one. A few, about 1 in 40, would tell her to "fuck off".

As I stood there, I saw that she cared a lot for these people. Why else would she be doing this? I walked up to her and said hello. She was glad to see me: She finally had an excuse to pack up and leave. Connie was an OT 3, the only one in Champaign at the time, and she would frequently talk to me about being an OT 3. I was very impressed by it. As we were walking away, she looked at the kids in the Quad and said "After what's been done to these people, they deserve something better. I won't stop until they get it."

She was completely sincere. I couldn't really figure out what she meant by "what had been done to these people" but I knew it was bad because Connie had told me so, and she was OT 3.

My New Purpose in Life

I began to think that my life would be better if I had a purpose, too.

I audited a lot of people on my HQS course and it really seemed to help them. This gave me a huge kick. And it made me much less nasty and selfish. Sardonic satire was no longer my favorite sense of humor. I enjoyed optimistic themes in movies. I was even starting to admire Ronald Reagan.

Deep down I had always believed that I was a secret genius, and that maybe this was what I was always meant to do - to save the world. As if some higher voice was leading me to it, I began to think that maybe Scientology was the way I was always supposed to fulfill this glorious destiny of mine. After all, Ron had said that Auditors were thetans who had lately arrived on the planet, and because they were less degraded than others who had been here longer than they had, they were more aware. Maybe Ron was describing me. Maybe Scientologists were my True Group of Secret Geniuses.

I made a decision that day that the Bridge to Total Freedom would be the new stable datum in my life. And going up it, and helping others to go up it, would be my life's central purpose.

I signed a 2.5 year contract to work on staff at the Champaign Mission. But I couldn't join right away, I had debts and money troubles to handle first. My dad was attacking again, and I was attacking back, and so it had been precisely and scientifically determined that I was PTS, Type A. It was thought to be very important to get that handled first or else I might be trouble to myself, to my friends, and to the Church. I would go up and down in life and lose my gains in Scientology.

The best place to fix that was back in Peoria.

So I went to the Peoria Mission for a "Search & Discovery" and some more "Potential Trouble Source" handlings by George & Andy - the smiling cornfed Class 8's of the Midwestern Plains.

Past Lives and a New Self-Identity

When I got to Peoria, the first thing they did was route me onto the Introduction to Scientology Ethics Course. To this day, what I learned on this course has helped me more than anything I have ever learned in Scientology.

Scientology taught me a fundamental truth here that I will never forget: If you remain ethical, you will be happy. If you do not remain ethical, you will not. This one powerful idea literally changed my life. I was certainly ripe for the change. But truly, along with the auditing I received - the world was no longer the same for me.

Scientology teaches the hallowed truthiness that "Man is basically good". If you are basically good, and you do something bad, you can restrain yourself from your own success as punishment to yourself. And so they deal heavily in getting you to look at and confess fully all the bad things you have ever done. They call these bad things "overts". And they call the times when you hid those bad things from others "withholds".

New poeople aren;t really ever asked to confess all the bad things that you have done. It's too "out-gradient". They freak and run. So once you start to show signs of being on the team, or "with-Scientology", they start to have to tell them the bad stuff.

Also, Scientologists believe in past lives. And they believe that you have done bad things in past lives, and that's why you are in such bad shape today.

I encountered confessing my first big overt on Life Repair. Andy and I were in session, and he had uncovered an overt I committed when I was younger. I masturbated or stole some change or something. He asked for an earlier, similar overt and, looking into my mind, I didn't see anything in answer to his question. He asked again, and still nothing was there.

Looking down at the reaction he saw on his E-Meter, he said, "That. What was that?"

I saw a white scarf in my mind.

Right then, to me, Andy had instantly become the biggest asshole I had ever met. I fucking hated him. I told him that there was nothing there and that he should shut up and just fucking back off.

He laughed. And then, looking down at his meter, he asked again. "What was that?"

"OK, it's a white scarf, so what?"

"All right. Tell me more about the scarf...."

The scarf was a little white doily scarf, like the ones you see on the heads of Mennonites, or even Amish women today. There were Indians around. We were in the woods. And these Puritan people were killing Indians and being very unfair to them. Totally hypocritical. I was really, really mad at them.

So I raped the Mayor's wife. And they castrated me and let me bleed to death in the stocks in the middle of the town square.

After telling Andy about this incident in my mind, which had a LOT of upset, my eyes were WIDE. I felt horrible for having talked to Andy the way I did. He just laughed and said it was okay, a normal thing when you are being asked to confront something like that.

After that session, I was changed forever. I drove back home in a daze from Peoria and went to the local bar. (It was a Friday Night, after all) It's all I could think about. The whole world seemed totally different now. The bar was different. Earth was different. And more than that, I no longer saw myself the same way. I was literally in a daze. I kept gazing at the things in my mind while I walked through real life around me.

I sat down next to a childhood friend, ordered a beer, turned to him and said, "I raped the Puritan Mayor's wife in the 1600's and they castrated me and let me bleed to death in the town square."

He stood, picked up his beer, and walked away.

I didn't really even notice. I was still thinking about it, playing it over and over in my mind. It seemed very real to me. More real than the bar I was in. And it made so much sense, emotionally, to me and to the inner attitudes I'd lived with inside all my life.

More and more of my old friends would walk away from me, just like that, over the next few months.

More Changes In My Life

It was the time in the mid 1980's when the first big national TV advertising was going on for Dianetics. You may remember the ads: "Why do you feel unhappy?"..."Answers on Page 234". Etc.

It was probably the only effective national campaign they ever had. Dianetics books sales were skyrocketing, and I was going to boom Dianetics in my local area.

I had a 1984 Honda Civic. I had plastered two Dianetic bumper stickers on the back of it. I had Dianetics books in my car. I was auditing my family, and anyone else who would sit still long enough. I was trying to get all my friends to quit drinking and smoking pot and snorting coke and to do Dianetics instead.

I remember walking into our local bar one afternoon. As I approached the door, I heard laughing and talking, and recognized many of the voices. I saw a lot of my friends cars in the parking lot. When I walked in, the whole place went silent. Nobody looked at me.

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a room and everyone has been talking about you?

Just then, a friend walked in the door behind me and yelled, "Hey! The I just saw the Dianetics Mobile - is Alanzo in here?"

Everyone bust out laughing. They thought that was real funny.

I didn't. I was beginning to think it was unethical to make fun of Dianetics, and of the people who were busting their guts out to bring everyone out of the mud. Maybe you've seen Tom Cruise interviewed when he gets all up in someone's face for criticizing Scientology. Well, Tom's lack of a sense of humor is nothing new in Scientology. That was one change that had started to occur.

Other changes were happening, too.

Even my mother had begun to notice changes. We were sitting around the living room with my family one day, and she said, "Look! Look at that!" I looked up and she was pointing at me. Everyone was looking at me. "See that?' she said, "He's smiling!" She was very happy seeing that I wasn't so sullen (and hungover) all the time.

My mother would read Edgar Cayce in the 1960's and other spiritualist writings. She would talk about it a lot when she was drinking. I wanted to get her into Scientology, as all Scientologists want for everyone, and so I told her that I was getting very, very interested in Scientology, spending more and more time there. (I knew this worried her a little because she had heard bad things about it.)

So, knowing that she was my mother, and knowing how much she worries, I told her one day "I don't know - I'm your son and I'm getting more and more involved in Scientology. You should probably check it out. It might be a cult."

She was in the next day. She routed onto the Success Through Communications Course. She loved it. She paid for auditing and pretty much became a Scientologist after that. I audited both of my sisters. My nearest sister came in and began taking courses. I even got my dad to come in and take a course. I got my whole family in. The mission loved me.

And things were much much better in my family as a result. We were quite a dysfunctional family, all fighting a lot, never eating together, slinging hurtful declarations at each other. It wasn't just me and my father. I wanted to use Scientology to fix my family. And it was true, after we began to look at Scientology, things got to be pretty good. At Thanksgiving, my sister even made a toast, holding her glass up and saying "I'm thankful for Alanzo, and his bringing Scientology into the family."

Even though I was losing friends left and right, the rest of my life was going much, much better.

An Instant Festival

With all the big wins I was having, and all the changes occurring in my life, my Life Repair was almost over. George brought me into his office and told me about a brand new auditing rundown which had just been released - the False Purpose Rundown. It was a series of auditing steps that located false purposes that you had been operating on in your life which prompted you to do bad things. Auditing those out, you could more easily be more ethical and not commit so many overts.

I was a prime candidate for this, it turned out.

He had been trained to deliver this False Purpose Rundown, and he had a special package he wanted me to know about: 2 12.5 hour blocks of auditing of the FPRD and a Purification Rundown for $5,000!

Normally, this would cost around $12,000 and this package was just what I needed and it would never be this cheap again.

Even with this awesome sale price, this was way more money than I had ever been asked to pay for Scientology. The Peoria Mission, in those days, was selling Life Repair auditing for $200 per every 12.5 hour block. "Life Repair" delivered by two Class 8's was basically taking up anything in life you wanted to talk about, and applying Scientology processes to those things to "release" them.

But this, 5,000 bucks, we were talking some money here. I had no way to get that kind of money.

"Well', George said, "How about your parents?"

"No way. I know I've gotten them interested, but...no way."

"Well, what if you told them about all the drugs you've done? And how the Purification Rundown was going to clean you out from that and help you to start new?"

"WHAT!!??!! Tell my parents about all the drugs I've done??? Are you crazy???"

George leaned back in his chair, half closed his eyes and smiled his smiled wide. He laughed real big and said, "It's not crazzzzy, Alanzo, it's the ethical thing to do!"

I thought about it. I am a graduate of the Intro to Scientology Ethics Course now. I should increase my integrity by confessing all the bad things I've ever done to the people around me. It was the ethical thing to do.

So I sat my parents down at the dining room table, these two people who had grown up in the 20's and 30's in ultra-conservative Alabama and Tennessee, and with as much gory detail as I could bare, I listed off the drugs that I had taken in my partying career:

"Cocaine, LSD, Psilocybin Mushrooms, Marijuana...pounds of marijuana...MDA, Mescaline, Angel Dust, Amphetimines, Valium, etc. etc."

They were both white with horror.

"But there's something I can do about it. Scientology has a way to clean me out from all that. It's called the Purification Rundown. This, along with this great new auditing thing called the False Purpose Rundown, is only $5,000."

It worked. They bought it. And the next day I went into the Peoria Mission with a $5,000 check in my hand from my dad.

George, Andy, and his wife Cyndi, literally JUMPED for joy when I handed it to them. They danced around in a circle and laughed. It caused an instant festival right there in the hallway.

"Wow." I thought. "I've really helped these people. They seem very happy with me."

The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number of Dynamics

I started on the Purification Rundown the next day.

And within two weeks I had signed a 5-year contract to work on staff at the Peoria Mission. This also made everyone happy with me. And since I had already begun my money handlings and other handlings there, I could start on staff in Peoria and get right on to my staff training and be an Expeditor. And when I was done with that, they would send me out to Los Angeles for advanced training to Class 6 auditor!

But first I had to go back to Champaign and tell Connie that even though I had signed a contract with her, I was actually going to go on staff in Peoria. When Cyndi was selling me to join staff in Peoria, I told her that I had reservations about signing another contract when I had already signed one with Connie. She told me that the Champaign Mission has only one auditor, and he's just a Class 4. Here, I would get all my auditing that I just bought and also be able to work on staff! And really, when you think about it, Alanzo, it's the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.

The "greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics" is a Scientologist's way of saying that something will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and other areas of life, too. And so that thing is the most ethical thing you could do.

Scientologists are all about doing "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics."

So I went back to the Champaign mission and told Connie what I had done. She started crying. She had tried for years to get another staff member, and thought that I was going to be the next one. She and her husband wanted to move to LA, and she was going to need someone to replace her as Mission Holder. She thought it would be me.

I laid out all the reasons for joining staff there in Peoria rather than coming back here and working on staff in Champaign. "It's the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics, Connie", I said.

She cried even louder.

Scientology: A Whole New You!

Scientology, at first, offers to help you improve your relationships, communicate better, and become more effective at handling life. They interview you to find your "ruin" - the thing that you feel is your biggest downfall in life.

They then tell you - no matter what it is - that Scientology can handle that. Or, "something can be done about that".

Let's take a typical new recruit: a twenty year old male, whose ruin is that he feels he is shy with girls. He is told that "Scientology can handle that". He is told that if you purchase a communications course, you will become less shy when talking to girls.

So the guy signs up and pays for the course. He now has a purpose that he wants Scientology to help him to achieve. He feels that if this works, then Scientology will have improved his life in a very specific and measurable way.

He does his course and realizes some things about himself. He improves his skill at communication. He might be out at a bar one night, and he has learned about "confront" - the ability to be there and comfortably perceive. He talks to a girl and it goes well. He attributes his "win" to his study in Scientology. He begins to feel that Scientology is improving his life (and it very well may be).

But as he continues to participate in Scientology, he is told about Scientology's version of ethics and the need to take more responsibility in his own life. He begins to be sat down and talked to about bringing in more people - his friends and family - and getting them on course. He is told that this is the way to a better life, by taking more responsibility for others than just yourself.

Scientology salesmen sit him down and start to sell him on his next course or auditing. Usually it costs much more than his first course. He is told he'll need to apply "confronting", what he learned on his last course, to figuring out how to make some more money to pay for his next course in Scientology.

If he starts to feel shy with girls again, and he brings this up, he will be told that his next auditing will address the mental causes for that shyness - which he very much "needs to handle".

So he comes up with the money and buys the auditing. What he isn't told is that the drills he did for communication were hypnotic techniques which made him more suggestible to statements like "You are a thetan" and "a thetan can handle anything".

He starts to see himself more and more as a "thetan". He is now told that he is a "thetan". And thetan is defined by L Ron Hubbard for him. Now he is being defined by L Ron Hubbard, and he loos more and more to L Ron Hubbard tapes and writings to tell him who he really is.

He sees himself changing. His self-identity is being re-defined.

The Scientology auditing he is getting is hypnosis. He is given suggestions by his auditor "we're going to handle your shyness with girls" and he is sent down into his mind to find the "causes" for this shyness. He is positive that the causes for his shyness are there because all of Hubbard's books say they are.

He comes up with mental incidents during these sessions and these are all accepted, no matter how wild, and he is even praised for having them. As he digs around more in his mind, he is learning more and more about himself as a "thetan". Every new incident he digs up from his mind is related to what LRH says about it. He is fitting his own self-identity into the concepts and cognitive structure of what a Scientologist is supposed to be. Now he is really looking very different to himself. The old self was shy - but the new Scientology Self self CONFRONTS!

As he continues to reshape his personality to be more and more of a Scientologist, he begins to become more and more committed to the various causes and crusades that Scientologists set out upon. He may be recruited for staff to "clear the planet" or "create a new civilization". Now, though, when he talks about how he still has his problems with girls, he is distracted off of that and onto the importance of clearing the planet.

Knowing what is wanted from him by his new group, and even being told that increasing his responsibility level will help him with girls, he may bring some people in to the organization. He may hand out flyers to help promote it. And if he really gets gung ho - he may go ahead join staff.

If so, he is now working for free 12-14 hour days and being pressured to keep his stats up week after week. All with the highest of ideals - to clear the planet.

Has he found a mate yet? Usually, no. Is he still shy with girls? Usually yes. But now he's playing a bigger game - not that old irresponsible wog game of finding a mate and settling down with her, either.

He's clearing the planet!

He now wants to use Scientology to clear the planet, not handle his shyness with girls.

Now he wants IMMORTALITY, and A CLEARED PLANET and A NEW CIVILIZATION. The human race is a bunch of "wogs" and they live pointless lives of nothing important. He sees his goal of finding a mate and getting married as just so self indulgent now.

He has completely forgotten why he came in in the first place. His goals have now all shifted from improving his own life to what Scientology says his goals are.

Yes, Scientology offers something completely different than other religions or self help groups.

Scientology offers a personality shift to a whole new you!

He has become an artificial, implanted personality, made up by L Ron Hubbard for the purpose of gaining greater control over his thoughts, feelings and behavior. In other words, he has become a Scientologist.

Booming The Peoria Mission

There was a strange thing about the Peoria Mission.

Here they were in a 6,000 square foot building on Main Street in Peoria, IL, with 2 Class 8 auditors and a Class 6 (Andy's wife was a Class 6 auditor), and they were only open Monday thru Friday nights from 7 to 10pm.

Sometimes Andy or George would schedule an auditing session for a pc on a Saturday.

There was one other staff member on contract named Tim. He was the person in charge of selling new people Scientology. He came in Monday thru Friday nights. Usually he would come in and then leave to go "pass out promo". Then he'd come back at 10pm and go home.

Very rarely was anyone on course but me. Sometimes Tim's brother Brian would be on course, and Augie, a sweet old black lady who had been in Scientology since the 1970's and who sometimes volunteered.

But that was it.

Now, this mission had been in Peoria, continuously operating, since 1954.

While I was doing my staff training, I couldn't help but notice that this was not the ideal scene (even though I didn't really know what an ideal scene was at the time).

I began to believe that these people really needed my help. I was a secret genius after all. And Scientology was my destiny. And we would Clear the Planet. And so there was just no way anything was going to happen except that I was going to BOOM THIS MISSION!

I had read Hubbard's policy letter called "Keeping Scientology Working". From this, I knew that the only reason for downstats was Suppressive People and the technology of Scientology not being properly applied. But whenever I went into George's office SURE that I had found the NEXT BIG THING that would BOOM the mission, I would leave more confused than ever. It seemed like things were more complicated than I had realized.

There was something here, and I was going to find it. And after I did, then this place was not only going to BOOM, it was going to become the biggest organization in Illinois! Maybe even the first SEA ORGANIZATION in Illinois!!!

But first I had to get through Staff Status Zero....

Off to Los Angeles

When I finished my basic staff training, it was time for me to go to Los Angeles for my more advanced training. I had been to Cairo, Athens, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, even New York City (well, to the airport, at least). But this was LA. This was big. I was excited.

It was a simple plan. I would drive the Dianetics Mobile from Central Illinois to Los Angeles, train up to Class 6 Auditor, and come back. We figured it should take about 6 to 8 months, a year maybe if something went horribly wrong. But nothing would go wrong because I'm a thetan and I can make anything go right.

I took off sometime in 1985, traveling down through New Mexico and Arizona, and into the Southern Californian desert. After three days of traveling, I figured I was getting close when I began to see the orange/purple/brown haze up in the tops of the mountains in the western sky. I had been calling in my coordinates to the Advanced Registrar all along the trip. She was micro-managing me to arrive into the org on time the whole way. Ken was the Public Officer of the American Saint Hill Organization (ASHO), and he was getting thrice daily updates from her as he was the thetan in charge over the area. I was really under pressure to arrive. I wanted to do good. I felt part of an OT team that was going to get me trained to Class 6, and fired back to Peoria to boom my mission!

The last day I drove 13 hours straight, and then headed into heavy Friday night Hollywood traffic at the end of that. That was something big to confront for a boy from the cornfields. But I handled it and drove straight to ASHO, totally exhausted. I lumped into a chair in front of the Public Officer's desk at 10pm that night.

"WELCOME TO ASHO, ALANZO!" Ken said in his booming, "big being" voice. It took until 10pm to 1am for them to log me in as an arrival. Then, I was finally told to go to the Manor Hotel in Hollywood where I would be staying as part of my work-study program. By 2:30 am, I was taken into a dark room on the 7th floor with sleeping people filling all but 2 holes in three bunk beds. I had been driving since 6am that morning.

I was exhausted. I crashed almost immediately

My First Taste of the Real Scientology

I awoke the next morning and looked around the room. Everyone was gone except one other guy. He was turned over asleep against the wall. I heard him walk in after me and collapse into the last hole.

I was in LA! I was in the Manor Hotel, which the Church PR had informed me was the hotel of Bogey and Bacall, and Erroll Flynn and all the rest.

I ruffled through my my duffel bag to find my cigarettes and toothbrush.

When I looked up, the last guy in was glaring at me from his bunk.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!! I'M TRYING TO FUCKING SLEEP YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!"

"Sorry."

"You fucking better be. What's your name?"

"Alanzo."

"Don't you fucking ever wake me up again, do you hear me?"

I had started to whimper inside a little, because I had never been talked to like that before by anybody, especially not another Scientologist. George and Andy would never raise their voice or even not smile, no matter what you did. This was actually very low-toned communication, I thought. And not very good TR1, either. And who was this guy, anyway?

"DO YOU HEAR ME??"

"Yeah. Sorry"

I walked out the door.

I looked down the hall of the 7th floor of the Manor Hotel, and out the window. There seemed to be a door to access the roof there.

I opened it, and walked out on to a roof overlooking the 101 Freeway with all the rest of Hollywood beneath me.

The morning sun was burning through smog. A grimey dew gathered in splotches in the shaded portions of the roof. There were palm trees and honking horns on Franklin and apartment buildings across the street. I turned around and looked north and there, big as life, was the Hollywood sign, splayed out across the hills of Griffith Park before me. The smells were different here. The light, the dusty palm trees, everything about it was different. I picked my nose and even my boogers seemed different. Kind of greasier in a way. Maybe it was from the smog.

I lit a cigarette and congratulated myself.

I made it.

The Sanest Place on Earth

It was a bright blue Saturday morning in Hollywood.

Last night, after the Day organization had routed me in, I was sent to then route into the Foundation Organization, as well. There are two organizations, with two separate staffs, and two sets of books, in every Scientology organization. That's why it took me over 3 hrs just to register.

I was supposed to route onto course the very next morning at ASHO, so I quickly ate a couple donuts and poured a coffee down my shirt at the 76 Station on Franklin, just before jetting out onto the entrance to the 101 Freeway.

I made it through LA traffic to the complex on Sunset Blvd and parked in the parking lot. I couldn't believe all the cars in the parking lot! Most had those S and Double Triangle Scientology symbols on the back. Coming from Peoria, my eyes bugged out. Man! This must be the most sane place on Earth!

Body Routed

As I walked to the sidewalk on what is now called L. Ron Hubbard Way, the street in Los Angeles that is totally enclosed by Scientology organizations, a guy stopped me and handed me a flier for a movie. I took it. He was a staff member from LA Organization, the building right next to the one where I was going to study. His name was Chris. Wow. I thought, LA Organization. This guy knows what he's doing.

He asked me to come inside and look at the org. "Wow. Sure, yeah!"

I told him that I was on work-study at ASHO, here to train up to Class 6. I puffed out my chest a little as I said it, too. He seemed very impressed, almost worshipful. He took me into the Sales area, and introduced me to an Israeli Scientology Salesperson there.

I was already impressed but now, this was amazing! I had just returned from living in Israel a couple of years before, and I knew a little Hebrew. And here was an Israeli Scientologist! Wow!

He asked me what course I was routing on to. I told him the Professional TRs course. He asked how I was going to pay for it and I told him my mission had training awards on account at ASHO. He told me that my mission had training awards here at LA Organization, too. He said he knew Andy and George back in Peoria and we talked about how great they were. Chris and this Sales person both seemed to really like me, and Andy and George, too, and they were impressed that I was a staff member at their mission and I was here to train to Class 6 Auditor.

He told me that he could get me a better deal at LA Organization than ASHO could give me because of the difference in price between the two. The cheaper price at LA Org would be good for the mission, he said. They wouldn't have to spend so much money to train me.

"I don't know. I think we'd better talk to Andy." I said.

The sales person said that he talks to Andy all the time, they were great friends and that I should just route in, and he would call Andy this morning and let him know. He was sure that it would be okay. "Just route in now and I'll call him before lunch."

If it was going to save my mission money, I thought that this would definitely be a good thing. "But what about Ken at ASHO? He's waiting for me."

"That's all right, I know Ken. He's a good friend of mine. I'll let him know what's happening."

"All right", I said. And they whisked me into the course room, a little before 10 a.m.

Famous in Hollywood

The LA Organization course room this Saturday morning was almost full. These guys had routing forms and word clearers and supervisors and everything. It was all snap and pop! Look! All students have their statistical graphs on the wall! Now THIS is how you're supposed to run a Scientology organization! I thought.

They announced me as a new student. Everyone clapped and welcomed me. I took my new course pack (which had been debited off of our mission bookstore account), went over to the dictionary shelf, picked one out, and sat down.

I was so excited. I was on course in LA! These were the trained professionals. These were the people who knew what they were doing, who I would learn from and emulate. I would bring back everything they taught me here and boom my mission. This was great.

By noon, the supervisor called "That's it" and we all went to lunch. As I walked out the door with the crowd of other students, one was just introducing himself to me as a hand grabbed my arm and lurched me to the side. A huge voice boomed at me angrily "MR. ALANZO!"

It was Ken from ASHO. "WHAT do you think you are doing routing into LA ORG'S COURSE ROOM????"

"Well, the registrar said he would tell you. Didn't he tell you?"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING ROUTING INTO LA ORG'S COURSE ROOM????"

He's pulling me out the door now. I recognized it as "Tone 40" from one of my Upper TRs drills on my HQS course back home. Cool. I'm being "Tone 40ed". For real, even. Wow.

"They said they could save my mission money, and that it was a better deal for us."

"A DEAL??? YOU CAME TO LA TO SHOP FOR A DEAL??? NO! You did not come to LA to shop for a deal for your mission. You came to LA to train up to Class 6 auditor AT ASHO!!!"

"We gotta talk to Andy." Now I was getting a little miffed. Why shouldn't I try to get the best deal for my mission? It's the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics that my mission saves as much money as it can. We'll be needing to send other students out here, and the more money we had for them on account - the better.

"Oh, WE'LL BE TALKING TO ANDY" Ken said, as he continued his Tone 40 of me down the street.

We climbed the steps at ASHO and walked into the reception area. All the staff were glaring at me. The receptionist glared at me, the ASHO Course Supervisor, who we got out of bed last night to route me in, glared at me as he walked past us. "Alanzo! You were supposed to be at roll call this morning!"

"We're handling Mr. Alanzo on this right now!" Every staff member was staring at me, and they looked mad. Ken shoved me down in the chair in his office and shut his door. He picked up the phone and called Andy.

"Alanzo?? What are you doing?" Andy said over Ken's speakerphone.

"They said I could save probably 20% at LA Org, Andy. We have the training awards there, too, right?"

Andy busted out laughing and then checked himself. "Alanzo, you just need to route onto course AT ASHO. This is not okay. We had agreements with ASHO that you would train there and you can't go against those." Ken, arms crossed, was still glaring at me.

"And so we're going to spend 20% more???"

"ALANZO!" He was yelling, but still somehow smiling. "FORGET ABOUT THE DEAL! YOU ARE TO ROUTE ONTO COURSE IMMEDIATELY AT ASHO AND THAT'S AN ORDER!!!"

"All right." I said. This was the second time I've been yelled at today. Jeez. This is not starting out very well.

Ken had been keeping a mean look on his face the whole time. There he was, the first real Sea Org member I had ever really met, and I had pissed him off on my first encounter with him. I wanted to impress him, not have him glaring at me like this.

He physically took me to the cafeteria where the other Sea Org members ate to eat lunch with him. He said that he was not letting me out of his sight. The other ASHO Sea Org members there, who I recognized from last night, were still glaring at me. Some would smile as they looked away. I got the feeling that these guys had been talking about me or something. They seemed to all know what's going on. I felt kind of famous, but for all the wrong reasons.

Ethics Bait

After lunch, Ken Tone 40ed me back to the course room and the Course Supervisor was there to route me in. As I stood there, a tall thin guy, balding on top, with a dark brown mustache and eyes that pierced right through you, walked in and right up to me. "So this is the infamous Mr. Alanzo from Peoria!" He wasn't smiling.

The Sup said, "Yep. Mr. Alanzo, meet Mr. Skrivars, your practical supervisor." I was really scared of this guy. He really seemed to mean business, like a drill sergeant.

Scientology course rooms are divided in two: Theory, where you read and study, and Practical, where you practice and apply what you've studied.

I sat down in the theory course room, this time my face was red and I was very, very flustered. The atmosphere here was much more intense than at LA Org. There, they all seemed to love me and be so impressed with whatever I said or did. Here, I'm what I would later know to refer to as "ethics bait."

As I sat in the theory course room, every once in a while I would look through the glass window that separated practical and theory and see Bill Skrivars glaring at me. They were watching me like a hawk.

Making It Go Right

I fell into my new schedule and "made it go right".

Dick-O, the theory supervisor, would do my star-rate checkouts on Student Hat. He would always find TONS of misunderstood words on me and send me back to re-study. He told me once that students were not born, they were MADE, and he was having a hard time making me into a student. It was frikking pink sheet after pink sheet with this guy. But I came to love him nonetheless.

I can still remember some of the names for roll call. There were probably around 100 students on course at that time. We would all stand in a circle in the hallway, chatting in the morning or after lunch. Dick-O would stand in the center of the hallway, at the top of the circle, chatting and watching the clock.

At exactly the top of the hour, he would yell, "That's it - Roll Call!!" Everyone went silent, glancing at each other, smiling.

"Ricardo Ainsley"

"Here"

"Mo Budlong!"

"Aye!"

"Bill Keister!"

"Here!"

"Melanie Murray"

"Here!"

"Bill Tobin"

"Aye!"

"Cindy Tobin"

"Here!"

"Letty Smith!"

"Here!"

etc.

I don't remember if it was because I was taking too long on Student Hat, or what, but I was put on Pro TRs and Student Hat simultaneously. I thought this was highly irregular, but it was what I was told to do. So I did it.

I was on two courses at once. And there was one more thing that I didn't mention: Back in Peoria, I had completed the Purif and started on the FPRD Basic List. Well, I had used up more than 2 intensives on the first question alone!

The question was something like "Do you have a back-off?" and it would just not quit reading! I had win after win on it. Running down chains way back into "thetan in the universe" incidents with exploding suns and postulating objects into existence and TONS of confusions and somatics and even popping out of the universe. I blew implants, I screamed and I cried. I sometimes stumbled out of session made of jell-o, unable to walk and could only lie down on the couch and laugh and line charge for hours in the pc waiting area. I would have floating TAs, F/Ns lasting for weeks, and shifts in viewpoint after viewpoint.

But I was still just on the first question!

Andy and George decided that, given the time it would take to get me through the second question, let alone the whole rundown, the planet might already be dead. So they shipped me off to LA for my training anyway. It wasn't optimum, but we would just "make it go right".

So okay. Here I was in LA, on two courses at once, and in the middle of the FPRD. Well, the first question of it, anyway.

I was constantly being sent to ethics. I would sit there doing TR Zero from 9am to 6pm, a full 8 hours of it, and my head would go black. Dark clouds with lightening would appear around my head and I would usually want to kill somebody. Bill Skrivfars SCREAMED that students didn't have cases, and I would agree and go back to drilling TR Zero again. But I kept thinking about the FPRD, and it was really clear to me that I needed to finish it.

This was, of course, totally out-ethics and I was totally being a panty-waiste dilettante as an auditor-in-training. And the more they tried to get my ethics in as a student, and the more I would try, the more the thunderstorms and the tornadoes would return. I got to know the Ethics personnel very well at ASHO. And the rest of the staff, too. They would muster down in the hallway in front of the ethics office. I was normally there, sitting on the ethics bench. I got to see roll call of the staff and the briefings from the CO a lot.

I was soaking up every bit of it.

Meeting Melanie

One day, my head was black again, sitting in my chair in theory.

Melanie Murray had been in the CMO and worked with LRH and Miscavage, and all the rest. She was busted for some reason unknown to me at the time and made to retrain her entire Bridge. She was doing her Pro Sup's Internship and was running the course room that day.

Pink sheets in hand, she approached me. "What's happening?" she said.

"I'm fucked up." I told her the story, as I'd told dozens before her.

She said, "It sounds like we need to take a look at your pc folders. Where are they?"

"They're at my mission in Peoria."

She stood upright. She paused and looked at me. "They're at your mission in Peoria?" I immediately recognized this as a Q&A. I would flunk her for out TRs if I had the standing to.

"Yes. I'm a staff member there, here on work-study."

She blinked. "I have a father in a mission in Peoria. And a brother and a sister-in-law, too."

"Gerorge? George Seidler?"

"Yeah, that's my dad."

Going up a pitch, I said, "Andy???"

"That's my brother, Cindy is my sister-in-law"

"Hah! But your last name is Murray!"

"That's my married name: Melanie Seidler-Murray."

"Hah!"

We became instant best friends. And to this day, I miss her very much.

She made a call immediately, and my folders were on their way. Melanie and I would eat lunch together. She would tell me stories about working for LRH in the CMO. We'd talk about Andy and George. We'd talk about books by Richard Bach and Dostoyevski. She'd teach me about some of the ways of Scientology that were a mystery to me so far.

She had a husband in the movie business named Pat. The two of them were in the old training films on Pro TRs. Pat starred in the original "Problems of Life" film.

Melanie had worked with LRH and David Mayo. And, from what I can piece together from the stories she told me over the years (Melanie always made sure to put the best PR spin on every story), when Mayo was busted, she and Pat routed out of the Sea Org and Melanie was declared as an SP. Through a long and drawn out justice cycle lasting years and many bureaucratic turnovers, she was able to overturn her declare.

And now she was retraining back up to Class 8 at her own expense.

Like An Airplane, Straight Over My Head

I tried to reconcile Malanie's stories at the time with what I knew about Scientology ethics and justice, but I just couldn't make it fit. I figured I just needed to get my case handled then it would all make sense.

In fact, if I had any critical thought at all, through all my ethics handlings and every other handling I was getting, I knew that it was probably just my FPRD case kicking in, and that I should just come back up tone and set my case aside.

When my folders arrived, I became a target for regging by Craig Sargent, and Ruthie Silverman, and Lester - all of the Div 2 reges at ASHO. But I didn't have any money, and since I was a work-study student, contracted on staff, I was sure that we could make it go right to get my auditing from a BC student, and get me back on course and training to Class 6.

That's when I found out that BC Interns, and all other Interns, audited paying pcs in the HGC. No one audited for free.

I had really really fucking come to the end of my rope. It was looking like I was damaged goods, unable to fit anywhere in the massive wheels of Scientology organization. No one knew what to do with me.

And, to top it off, the CO Manor had gotten busted and the whole staff, including me on work-study, was put on rice and beans.

I was here in California, and ALL my time was taken up between ASHO and the Manor. I hardly ever even got to see a movie, or walk down Hollywood Blvd. And now I was eating rice and beans.

I was starting to get sick of it.

Not Getting the Clues

So one night, I decided that I was going to drive up the coast to Monterrey, taking Highway One, because I wanted to see the land of Steinbeck and smell the ocean. After course on Friday, instead of going on post, I just took off.

It was beautiful. I returned on Sunday and walked into the new CO's office. He screamed at me and told me that I had blown and that I was expelled from work-study. I went up to my room and all my belongings were gone. I went back down to the CO's office and he told me that when I blew, they confiscated all my property. If I worked up through liability, I would get it back.

For liability, I had to buy a set of tapes or something from him. He gave me my stuff back and all kinds of things were missing, cheap jewelry, mostly, and some shoes.

What the fuck ever. I found a place around the corner from the complex on New Hampshire. It was a house with bunk beds filling every open space.

At least now I could concentrate on studying.

But that didn't work either, as the same shit continued to occur.

So, after 5 months, I had completed no courses, and I was completely dejected. I was a total loser. We decided that I should just come back. So I went through a hellacious and dev-T filled routing out process with lots of screaming at ASHO. Ken Shapiro had been made the CO now. And he was the one to sign off the final step of my routing form.

"I hate to see you leave, Mr. Alanzo," he said in his booming big being voice.

"I know, but it really is the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics." He signed it.

I was free!

Back To Peoria

I packed up the Dianetics Mobile and took off.

With $58 in my pocket, I headed out on the 2,000 mile trip back to Peoria.

The price of gasoline was between $1.15 and $1.20 in the first 6 months of 1986.

The Dianetics Mobile was a 1984 Honda Civic that got over 30 miles to the gallon on the highway. I figured that if I didn't buy any food, and spent it all on gas, I would still come up around $12 short.

Oh well, I'll just have to make it go right.

I had a few cans of Coke and some bread and crackers in a paper bag in the back seat. There might have been some cheese in there, too.

I took the northern route through Colorado and slept in rest stops in my car. For some reason that, today, I still can not fathom, I had taken my 13" black and white TV with me to LA. It was in the front seat next to me. In a small town west of Denver, I sold the TV at a used furniture store for $20.

Now, with this extra $20, if I only bought one or two meals in the 2 days more it would take to keep driving straight through, I would make it.

I rolled into my parent's driveway on "E", totally exhausted, 2 days later.

It was when I got out of the car, and looked at the parent's house, that I knew I had changed. Today I realize how profoundly I had changed, but back then, I only knew that there was a change in my worldview.

I now saw things in a very disciplined, almost para-military way. The losses and humiliations I had suffered in LA did not diminish my purpose to Clear the Planet one bit - they had strengthened them.

I now knew what was necessary to get the Mission on track. I was out-qualed for the Sea Org as I had taken LSD. But, nonetheless, I was going to be a Sea Org member right there in Peoria to make that mission contribute to planetary clearing.

With this new viewpoint, I still felt like a complete failure. And when I showed up at the mission the next day, George greeted me with open arms. There was not one hint of censure or disapproval at all in his whole presence.

He just audited me.

And it was SUCH a relief!

Through Green Forms and C/S Series 40's, student repair lists and lots of handlings, I no longer felt like a total loser, but instead, I was rehabilitated right back to, and even more enthusiastic than before.

The mission was only open 7pm to 10pm Monday through Fridays. I moved a mattress on to the floor of one of the abandoned auditing rooms and told my parents and George and Andy that I was going to "align my dynamics" to the mission. And that meant that if the mission suffered, I would suffer. If the mission prospered, I would prosper.

And that was all there was to it.

So I kind of made my own little Sea Org right there in Peoria. I was a Sea Org of one, and let me tell you, that was plenty.

Cary & Me

Of course, the first thing that needed to be done was to get everyone's ethics in.

Why else would we have no public? Why else would we only be open 15 hours per week? My God! Wogs were burning in the witch pit! We have a virtual monopoly on knowledge of the mind, two Class 8s and a Class 6, and we're only open 15 hours per week?

George was the Mission Holder, and Andy was the ED. Applying the principles of "Post from the top down", which I had learned in LA, I demanded that Andy give me the post of Hubbard Executive Secretary. I would hold HCO from above, as well as Ethics Officer, and I get ethics IN, and would establish this mission for blood.

Especially with all that I had "learned" while being handled by Sea Org members in LA and seeing how it was really supposed to be done.

Cary Goulston was the CO SMI EUS, and Andy was only too happy to give me the job of calling the stats into Cary every Wednesday night. Cary was a screamer and a throat-ripper, and a completely unreasonable idiot on the phone. And that was fine with me.

It seemed to me at the time that Cary was the only one who "got it". Andy and George were these kindly old fumblers, were obviously out-ethics, and had made a dog's breakfast of this mission.

Cary and I were going to handle it, fully and terminatedly.

Euewwww

I can remember my first project of going to work recruiting people in the field.

The Peoria Mission, as the longest running mission in North America, had a huge Central Files. I immediately started a call in campaign to clean up the ARCXen field, brush off any reasonableness I might run into, and revitalize their purpose.

This was the summer of 1986. There were long time Scientologists in the field, OTs no less, who would have nothing to do with the mission, or Scientology any more. This, to me, was a major outpoint. And I was going to get to the bottom of it.

I brought in one ball of entheta after another. They all new what needed to be done, and they all told me to get to it. Well, I had a little different view of it than that. THEY were out-ethics, and whatever problem they had, was at it's root, obviously, an overt. And so THEY needed to write up their overts and withholds and get back to contributing to clearing the planet!

I learned that the mission used to have 100s of thousands of dollars in reserves. They had it in gold and cash in bank accounts and safety deposit boxes. Yet this 6,000 square foot building we were in was 7 months late on the rent. There was no money in any accounts any more.

Something had happened?

What was it?

Switching Goals

As HAS HFA, I started recruiting right and left. While I was away, my sister had become much more interested in Scientology. She signed a 2.5 year contract to train up to be the Course Supervisor. Randy Spurgeon was the son of a woman who had been in the Sea Org, Carrie Spurgeon. Randy signed a contract and was made the HAS. Then we found Barb, a girl from a small town nearby, and she took over Treasury. Tim Crowley’s brother Luke had been a cop, and had just won a big legal settlement. Carrie Spurgeon was coming in a lot more to help out on staff and she got Luke to buy his whole Bridge at Flag with his settlement money and sign a five year contract to be the Mission OES.

Andy was at the end of his last five year contract and he and Cindy were going to move to LA. Cary went on a tour of the “Cont.” and came to the mission one day. He and Andy sat me down in the ED’s office. I think he brought another ED from the East Coast with him. Cary said that I should take over for Andy as ED.

“Me? I’m just a Mini hatted HES. And anyway, I’m going back out to LA to get trained. My goal is to make 5 clears per week!”

“Well, how many clears per week do you think you could make as an ED? Then you’ll have a whole team of auditors to make Clears with.” I actually bought that. If my goal was to make Clears, and thus Clear the planet, then he was right – I could make a lot more Clears as an ED than as a single auditor.

And just like that, I gave up my goal to be an auditor.

It was the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.