My Life As A Scientologist -Part VIII: The Last Stand of L. Ron Hubbard

This entry is a continuation of "My Life As A Scientologist." To view part one, click here.

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I decided to take a very brief break. I took four or five days off to reflect and collect myself.  Molly called me in the middle of the week.

"Hey Pete," she said in a friendly tone. "I'm just calling because I was looking at your records and it looks like you've used up more than the 20 hours of audit counseling that you paid for, so you're going to have to pay for the extra time. You should pay another $200 for another block of time."

"Yeah, I kinda knew that, but I just don't think I want to pay it," I said back. "I'm not quite sure that I'm getting any benefit out of this, or that I even believe any of it."

"Did you discuss this with your auditor?"  She seemed surprised that I had doubts about the organization.

"No."

"Well, I talked to Paul and he said that you need to get in here right away because of something that happened during your last auditing session."

"Well, I don't think I'm gonna continue. I don't want to have to keep paying for something that I don't feel I'm benefiting from, or that I don't feel like I even believe," I explained.

"I'll tell you what," she replied. "Paul has to see you one last time. You don't have to pay for it, but you should come in and get that much taken care of."

I agreed to go.

I arrived a bit late to the DC, but that didn't matter since Paul was in a session that was running long.   Molly assured me that Paul would be willing to audit all night. I had a headache.  

When I casually mentioned to Molly that I had a headache, she directed me to Doug (the squirrelly guy from the beginning of the story).

"We have a special way of getting rid of headaches here. Doug will show you."

What happened next was obscene...

Doug brought me upstairs to a room with a table. He told me to lie down. He was a very quiet person and said very little. As I lay there, he began to repeatedly and vigorously brush and pull the sleeves of my arms with his hands as if to remove cat hair that was stuck to it. His silent aggression seemed to come out on my clothes. Then he started with my pant legs.

Gross.

His squirrelly silent hands on my body.... gah.

Inches from my crotch.

He continued for about two minutes, switching back and forth between legs and arms. I still had an awful headache, and in addition to that, his hand-raping was just making me really uncomfortable.

"Okay! Cool! I don't have a headache anymore," I said as I stopped him and stood up.

I don't think he was done with whatever the fuck he was doing, but he let me go.

I continued to wait for Paul in the waiting room.

His previous session continued for an hour.

Pretty soon it was closing time and Paul came down.

"Sorry about that," Paul said. "There were some complications.  He was having a situation similar to your last session.  We're going to have to reschedule."

I agreed to call him to set up an appointment and then left.

From then on I didn't answer any phone calls that came from the DC, and I haven't been back since.

I still receive mail and the occasional phone call from them. Somehow they always find out my new address whenever I move.

I had two advantages that ultimately led me to the decision to leave the L. Ron Hubbard Dianetics Center:

One was a lack of knowledge of the book Dianetics.  Had I been assigned to read that book before I started, my auditing sessions may have been more "successful" and that may have swayed me from changing my mind.

The second was the feedback from my family.

During the duration of my time spent with Scientology/Dianetics, my mom and brother Paul expressed concern that I was getting involved with a questionable organization.

This was an important part of giving me a critical view of what I was doing.  I've always held a great deal of regard in outside opinions since it is often difficult to see the big picture, and even more difficult when you're a person involved in the big picture.

I am very grateful that they were there to cast doubt on my views.

Today I can talk tough, as if I knew that Dianetics was a bunch of crap.  The real truth is that I absolutely wanted to get help and be a part of something, whether it was an organization, or a church, or a band of hippies. I encountered the Scientologists at a time when I was doing some serious soul searching, and they seemed to have the answers. They had a new and exciting set of beliefs that I had never heard about before, and frequently, when their members were saying things to me that made no sense, I was confused, but I thought that if I stuck with it long enough, one day I would understand.

I was slowly drifting towards accepting their beliefs and for many years afterward, questioned whether I did the right thing by leaving. The Scientologists really had an effect on my life, and had I met a few different individuals at the DC that were slightly more influential..., or had I had a subtly different experience, I might still be there. If I had shown up on a day when I didn't have a headache..., or a day when I was less tired..., or if I had started attending AFTER I started reading Dianetics, I may have been more open to suggestion..., and that is chilling to me.

It's important to be critical in our thinking. Facts that we agree with should be met with the same skepticism as the facts that we disagree with. Don't just watch CNN because FOX News is "Evil." Watch both. Try your damnedest to view issues from their eyes. If you're an atheist, read the bible. If you are a conspiracy theorist, read Skeptic Magazine. If you are 100% sure of your beliefs, then you are wrong.  What we believe to be absolute truth and hold so dearly are the things that need to be questioned the most. Stop dismissing evidence that you don't believe because you think that it is "biased," and realize that someone else believes those facts and thinks that your information is biased. If you spend all of your time reading and listening to messages that you agree with and make you feel good, you will remain polarized and ignorant. If you're going to disbelieve something, you need to make sure that you understand it first.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to have a friendly conversation with people that don't agree with you.  Read books that you hate, and read them as if you wrote them.

I am not a Scientologist. It's not because I think the people are weird or biased. It's not because my family disproved of the organization.  It's not because some people call it a cult.  It's not because I saw videos on the internet that told me about a number of scary Scientology related deaths. It's not because I spent two months at their organization.

::Thank You For Reading::

My Life As An Atheist -Part I

::Epilogue::

I used to view Atheists as being closed-minded.  I wondered how someone could be so sure that there is no god, especially when there are so many accounts of people witnessing strange spiritual occurrences.  There is so much in the universe that is unexplained.  How can we really know what's out there?  How can we possibly dismiss all of this as a series of natural events?

If not the God, then a God.  Some God must have done it.

I've only considered myself an atheist for about two years and wasn't comfortable identifying myself as an atheist until the last few months.  I still don't tell most people.

People assume things about you as soon as you tell them anything about anything.  When you tell them that you're an atheist, they fill in the blanks about the rest of your world views.  They can attach negative stereotypes to you and talk to you differently.

People have asked me if I would feel bad about killing someone.

The answer is yes, I would feel bad if I killed someone.  I will never kill anyone.  I swear.

Obviously there are misconceptions about what atheists actually believe.  I can't pretend to have all of the answers.  I don't claim that I know everything.  I don't think that theists are dumb.

I've merely decided to take all of the answers to life's questions and put them on hold for the rest of my life, or until I figure them out... whichever comes first.

This is my story, as told by my religious experiences.

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When I was a boy, Sunday mornings engendered a strange feeling.  The cartoons weren't as good as Saturday morning cartoons, I was even lazier getting out of bed than the morning before, and even my Alpha Bits cereal didn't seem to sit right in my stomach.

I also had to go to church.

I would gobble my breakfast with my messy hair and He-Man pajamas while watching Richie Rich.  I needed to stretch as many of those seconds of cartoons in as I possibly could before my mom came in to interrupt and have me put on my Sunday clothes.

By my mid-elementary school years my mom had already given up on trying to make me look fancy at church and settled for "just put on a sweater."  After all, there were seven of us kids, and every Sunday my mother and father managed to make sure that we were all dressed, ready, and in the van in time to get to church early enough to find seats next to each other.

My mother is an amazing woman.  I can't even manage a bus pass and my mom kept all seven of us in line and on time for the first 18 years of our lives.

Those first ten years of church were BOOOORRRRRIIIINNNNGG... I couldn't stand it.  I knew I had to be there, but I didn't quite understand why.  On sporadic Sundays a volunteer would bring the kids into a separate room during mass so that the young ones can try other Jesusy activities, but these meetings were poorly organized and barely managed to capture the attention of children raised on video games.

As I got into the double digits I learned about the true meaning of church.  I knew some of the stories and was able to pay attention to the priest long enough to realize that he wasn't trying to force me to make up excuses to go to the bathroom.  

I began to enjoy church.  I sang the songs and I was old enough to eat the bread and wine.  Sometimes at home I would play church with my brothers and sisters and our stuffed animals were the congregation.

::Click Here For Part II::

Name That Logical Fallacy: Unicorns

I'm borrowing a nerdy game that is played on my favorite podcast, The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe.  It's a game called "Name That Logical Fallacy."

Before I started playing this game, learning about logical fallacies, and recognizing them in my daily life, I had a tremendously different outlook on the world.  I would listen to people on political talk radio, or argue with people, or watch TV commercials without realizing how often people, myself included, make large leaps in logic.  If you love arguing, you will want to exercise your logical fallacy vocabulary.

Before we begin, you may want to glance at a list of logical fallacies:

List of Fallacies

Alright.  Name That Logical Fallacy:

"If you're an atheist you don't believe in God.  I mean, I don't believe in unicorns, but I don't go around writing books like:  The End of Unicorns, The Unicorn Delusion, Unicorns Are Not Great... I don't have conferences on unicorns.  There's something a little weird going on here."

-Dinesh D'Souza 

At The University of Minnesota during a debate titled, "Can We Be Good Without God?"

Source: "Can We Be Good Without God?"

Time's up.

To give Dinesh D'Souza the benefit of the doubt, I believe that he was just telling a joke to open up his argument.  He wasn't actually trying to use this as a talking point.  That shouldn't matter since this is only a game and an exercise in critical thinking.  

Sometimes there will be more than one logical fallacy in a statement.  This is partly because the statement may horribly illogical, but it can also be because many logical fallacies overlap with each other.

The Inconsistent Comparison Fallacy is the one that I was able to pull out of this one.  I've also heard this one called a False Analogy (which wasn't on the provided list above).  Mr. D'Souza tried to draw a parallel between not believing in God to not believing in unicorns and presumed that we should treat them in the same manner.  This is a false comparison because people who believe in unicorns do not have the same influence on our culture and society the way that Christians and other theists do.  The size of the population of unicorn believers is also much smaller.

It would be similar to me questioning: why do people protest abortion?  Cells in our body die every day.  Sometimes we intentionally kill cells when we're trying to fight cancer.  These are all cells, and in all of these situations cells are being killed.

  

This is inconsistent because they are not the same cells and, just as in our gods and unicorns comparison, they have different social implications.  Embryonic cells also behave differently, have a different potential, and are treated in a drastically different manner than skin or cancer cells. It would be ridiculous for someone to make the argument that all cells should be treated equally.

Now that I've said what I have to say, let me hear your ideas.  It's possible that I will miss logical fallacies when I do these.  I'm not an expert.  I may even incorrectly interpret the fallacies that I find.

The Tale of Adams College

In the eighties, there was a city that housed one of the finest institutions in the country: Adams College. Adams was a prestigious school that had a strong computer program. It was a perfect place for an undergraduate student to find him or herself an education.

However, the school had one major flaw in its disciplinary system: if a fraternity vandalized a house, campus police couldn't do damn thing about it. To solve these problems you had to go to The Greek Council, an organization................... RUN BY FRATERNITIES.

We can all see the dilemma here. A bunch of guys in a house get a rock in their window that says "Nerds Go Home," and the only way to get back at the sons of bitches that did the dirty work is to complain to those very same sons of bitches. That's not a way to get anything done!

So naturally, the next logical step would be to form a fraternity and get those people out of power.

How would one bring down such mighty power that had jurisdiction over the police?

By winning the yearly festival of weird games, of course!

This festival includes: drinking an asspants-load of beer while riding a tricycle, arm wrestling, tug-o-war, belching contest, shaking some ropes tied to a barrel, selling shit that no one needs, an awful talent competition, and other events like raping a football player's girlfriend on the moon.

That's right.

Anyone who knows what I'm talking about should be outraged that this happened. If a guy dresses up in a costume and pretends to be a girl's boyfriend so she will unknowingly have sex with him, THAT'S RAPE. Instead of attempting to murder Lewis Skolnick and sue the life out of him, Betty Childs..... falls in love.

Lewis must have had a totally radical nerd-wiener to pull that off. This had to have been the key to Betty Childs' heart. Five minutes before the sexual assault happened, Betty wouldn't even kiss Lewis. Then, without any of that boring getttin'-to-know-ya riff-raff, they fuck genitals, she does a complete 540º and literally falls in love with him.

She then dumps her current boyfriend, Stan Gable: the kick-ass football player. The very same Stan Gable that threw the rock into Lewis' window, and who is head of the Greek council. She dumped him like yesterday's onion rings for reasons which are not logically sewn together. Sure, Stan was a huge dick, but that didn't matter because Betty was there the whole time, acting like a giant bitch. They were perfect for each other.

Anyhoo, that's the famous story of the Adams College Greek Festival Jocky Girlfriend Rape.

My Life As A Scientologist -Part VII

This entry is a continuation of "My Life As A Scientologist." To view part one, click here.

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My session during this day was odd. For whatever reason, whenever the auditor asked me questions I would get these peculiar images in my brain and explain them to him. I was probably just in an off mood that day. I saw scratchy black and white images of being in a Junior High nurse's office and teddy bears were running around.

Teddy bears do not run around in Junior High nurse's offices.

I was also convincing myself, with the help of my auditor, that my parents had abused me one evening. I was told not to ask my parents about this because it was against the rules to talk about what you remembered in auditing because what's important is how you remember it.  Anyone else's input can distort that memory.

Hmmmmmm.

I guess I never asked why it was important that I remembered the memory at all.  If I thought that something happened in the past, why can't I just erase it and move on?  Who cares?  It's probably more important that I talk to my parents about being abused than it would be to have a successful audit session.

Things seemed beyond wrong; they seemed like complete bullshit. During my sessions I kept remembering things that didn't happen. Either I know that they didn't happen, or it was impossible for them to happen.

The auditor is not allowed to end a session until you have what is called a "Win." This is just a point when you feel good and are smiling. This didn't happen on his day. I was there for about 5 or 6 hours and had to leave because the office was closing and I needed to go to work. Paul told me to come back as soon as possible because some kind of "portal" or "memory" or something was still open. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

::Click Here For Part VIII::

My Life As A Scientologist -Part VI

This entry is a continuation of "My Life As A Scientologist."  To view part one, click here.

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Classes took place during three-hour periods. During that time you just sat at a shared table and accomplished as much as you could.

Almost everyone there was male, and there were a few children. Many of the men wore collar shirts with ties. A picture of L. Ron Hubbard hung on the wall.

I went upstairs to my first session of my class. Work was done independently. I went through my book, wrote in the answers to the questions, and if I didn't understand what something meant, I would ask the worker that was walking around talking to people.

At the end of the three-hour period, the floating worker stopped everyone and exclaimed, "Ladies and Gentlemen, put down your pencils and rise to thank L. Ron Hubbard for his work." Everyone in the entire room stood up, faced the picture of LRH, and began to roar with applause. Some cheered. I sat still and looked at everyone.

At this point in the story, you may be wondering why I put up with all of this.

Why wasn't I running out the door screaming?

The only reason I stayed was because of the auditing. After a couple of sessions, I would leave after auditing feeling really good as long as I didn't have to talk to anyone on my way out.

The fake behavior of the workers would bring me down.  People would sometimes corner and talk to me as I was leaving.  They would ask me how everything was going and tell me horror stories about prescription drugs.  Every time someone would talk to me I felt like they were just doing their job -like they were trying too hard to make me feel welcome.

During one of the last sessions that I had at the DC, I showed up early as usual. Molly was there and, as always, wanted to talk to me. She asked me about my music and my band. Then she came at me with something:

"Oh you guys have a show coming up? You should let us come down and set up a booth so we can pass out reading material during your show."

An image of embarrassment surrounded my imagination. I could see dozens of Nu Metal kids throwing Scientology pamphlets on the floor and giving me strange looks.  Everyone would know that I'd been going to this place and ask me why.  Or even worse, they might not ask me why and shrug it off.

"I'm not sure about that," I spoke very hesitatingly. Thankfully the idea was never pushed any further.

At this point I started to realize that this was not like therapy. If I went to a therapist's office once a week, I didn't have to involve the therapist into my life any more than that. A therapist wouldn't constantly ask me to work at his/her office. A therapist wouldn't want to come to my shows and advertise. This was just weird.

::Click Here For Part VII::

Food

Caution!  This Blog Entry Contains Swears.

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Food.  It exists, and we eat it.  

We live in America: a place where there is so much food that even the dumpster squirrels that live in the back of my building are sweaty and fat.  So why the hell is it such a damn problem for some people to eat it?

Let me just put something out there right now:  FOOD IS AMAZING.

All food.

I want to eat it all.

One of the most frustrating scenarios that comes up from time to time is when I have to help decide where to eat with my friends or family members.  I can't understand why people refuse to eat certain things. I know people that won't eat vegetables.  I know people that won't eat meat.  I know people that won't eat fake meat.  

People that won't eat at buffets.

People that won't eat at corporate restaurant chains.

People that only eat hamburgers.

People that won't eat red meat.

People that don't eat fish.

People that don't like Mexican Food.

What

The 

Fuck?

I promise this to everyone right now:  if you invite me to a restaurant, and I can afford to eat there, I will fucking go.  End of conversation.  Who cares what they have?  There isn't one goddamn thing on the menu that you can't stuff in your dumb mouth and choke down your crybaby throat?  STOP IT!  You're an adult!

If you don't like something, eat it until you do.  Eat everything.  I don't care if it makes you physically sick, just eat it.

I eat everything.  I eat cereal for at least 10 of my meals during the week.  I've lived for years off of barbecue chicken breasts, toast, and eggs.  I once ate a boloney sandwich with Eggo waffles in place of bread and dipped it into nacho cheese.  I hated every second of the experience, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.  It was hilarious.  I once ate spaghetti noodles covered in barbecue sauce for dinner.  I've knowingly eaten canned dog food because it looked good.  

It wasn't.

There is no logic to be connected here.  We live in a country filled with so much food that you are allowed to eat like a six year old.  

That's not okay.

The world is not pizza.  It's not meat.  It's not chips, spaghetti, Funyuns, tofu, soy sauce, spring rolls, or Play-Doh.  It's all of these things.  These are wonderful gifts given to us by the food ghosts that live in the basement of the food pyramid.  They watch us eat our balanced meals, and cry when we shy away from Omega-3 Fatty Acids and refuse to eat carbohydrates.  They become physically ill when they watch us become anorexic or just throw up our dinner after a night of binge drinking.  They sacrifice their eternal souls to that balanced pyramid and slave away so that you can eat your 5,000 calories a day, let your dog lick the plate clean, and have enough left over to throw away so that the raccoons, squirrels, and maggots can have a taste of your Chef Boyardee with those things that almost look like meatballs.

Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you'd like.*

"Just Eat It"

-'Weird Al' Yankovic

*Bonus Question:  Name This Movie!

Ask Andrew W.K.

Every Blog I've ever had has had this entry. It bears repeating.

This is a question that I asked Andrew W.K. on his old "Ask Andrew" forum. It's important to note that the screen name that I was using on this forum was "Velcro Slip n' Slide."

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Question:
Andrew - I love jelly beans. How many jelly beans could you eat in one sitting?

Answer:
Dear Velcro Slip n' Slide,

This is a great question! If I conditioned myself for a few days, by eating large meals infrequently I could probably strech my stomach out enough to swallow at least 5 pounds of jelly beans. I guess it depends on what kind of jelly bean it is. You know? Like what size... the big kind, or the small ones like Jelly Bellies? I think ' the small ones are better, plus Jelly Bellies have so many different flavors, that would make it more interesting and fun. Do they have a steak flavored jelly bean? They really should. Candy that is savory and not sweet is awesome! Like the chicken and rice flavored gum! So, it depends on how long of a sitting I get to eat all that jelly gum! All day? A few hours? A few minutes? You know? So anyway, I think I could pack away an awful lot of beans, especially if I had some water and maybe something else to help clean out my taste buds... somethin' spicy. By the way, your name is awesome! I don't think I've ever seen a velcro slip n' slide, I guess because it wouldn't work too well... but they do make those velcro walls - you wear a big velcro suit and then you jump into the wall and you stick to it! They have it in the Disney movie "The Blank Check", which is an awesome movie! Anyway, thank you for your question! Take care!

Your friend,
Andrew W.K.

My Life As A Scientologist -Part V

This entry is a continuation of "My Life As A Scientologist." To view part one, click here.

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I figured that auditing with Dianetics would be just like a therapy session.

I was wrong.

They have you close your eyes and count to ten. Then you just have to start remembering things and looking for engrams to erase. There are a bunch of different types of engrams of which I was not familiar.

For example, one type was called a "bouncer." If you started to talk about one memory and then suddenly switched to another memory without notice, you have a bouncer. A bouncer is a phrase like, "Get out of here," or "Leave!" that forces you to leave the memory that you're on. The auditor would say "File clerk**, what is the bouncer?" You are then supposed to come up with the first saying that you think is a bouncer so you can get rid of that engram.

**File clerk:
During auditing and in the book Dianetics, LRH uses the analogy of a file clerk to explain how your brain works. They have you imagine that you have a tiny file clerk in your brain and when an auditor asks you a question, the file clerk spits-out the first answer from your memory. You are not supposed to evaluate the "file clerk's" response. Weirdly enough, this analogy is almost used as a reality by auditors. They speak directly to the imaginary file clerk in your brain, rather than directing a question at you or even your brain itself.**

Whenever I showed up there, there was always somebody that would talk to me and pay special attention to me. I showed up one Saturday before auditing and a girl behind the counter wanted to take me for a walk. She asked me a lot of the same things that the last secretary asked, and then, of course, told me that I should work at the DC.

On a different occasion, I showed up before my class and Molly was working. Before I could go upstairs to the classroom she stopped me.

"Pete. Wait a minute. Come here."

I went over to her desk.

"I want to ask you something."

"Alright," I responded. She sat me down in a chair next to her. She looked me straight in the face and said:

"Are you aware?"

She looked at me and said nothing more.

I came back with the obvious response, "Aware of what?"

They were always particular about how they worded things. I'm pretty sure that the workers are coached to respond as close to the way that LRH wrote the responses in his books.

She took her L. Ron Hubbard Dictionary** out from under her desk and read me the definition of the word "aware."  This definition was no different from any other dictionary definition of "aware" that I'd ever heard before.

She gently closed the book and placed it in her lap.

"Now," she began again, "Are you aware?"

"Yes," I said sternly, hoping to convince her and get the hell away from her as soon as I possibly could.

"Good," she nodded.

That was the end of our conversation.

**L. Ron Hubbard Dictionary:
LRH has written an insane amount of books on almost any subject you can think of. I'm not sure why he has his own dictionary. I speculate that he may have written it to explain all of the slang terms that were invented for his organization.**

::Click Here For Part VI::

My Life As A Scientologist -Part IV

This entry is a continuation of "My Life As A Scientologist."  To view part one, click here.

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A few days later I arrived for my first audit session. As I was sitting there waiting, the secretary started to talk to me. Everyone there ALWAYS talks to you. It was as if they had a rule that they had to talk to you and seem really excited that you were there.

During our conversation I'd mentioned that I was about to graduate from music college and that afterward I'd probably just work for my dad while I figure out what to do. That's when she said, "You should work here!" I was confused as to why she thought I should work there. It was only my second time even stepping foot in the place.

"Well, I'm pretty new. I don't know much about this place," I responded.

She said, "That's okay. It's great working here. You get all kinds of discounts on your classes and auditing. You can even start to practice auditing on other people."

That seemed really odd. I was about to have this counseling done that apparently anyone can do with very little education. Not to mention that this was a supplemental self-help thing that I wanted to do. I didn't want to work there or make it my life. I was just looking for a stress reliever.

I can't recall much of what was talked about in that first auditing session. I do recall that I was confused about how to have an auditing session. I'd been told that I could start right away, even though I hadn't read "Book 1."  Paul, my auditor, had to explain a lot of the pieces of Book 1 to me, and had me read certain parts so I could understand what was going on.

::Click Here For Part V::