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::