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INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY/DIANETICS

PART I: The Franchise

We use on him the exact button he came to us on so he's never dismayed at any change of tack on our part. Then we interest him in clearing.

L. RON HUBBARD

Raw Meat

My reacquaintance with the world of L. Ron Hubbard commenced sometime around 1965 on a subway platform in Manhattan. A young lady I knew from a ballet orchestra job (I'll call her "Joan Porter") called over from the opposite platform, "I've found it! Scientology! It really works!" Further knowledge of what she had found was cut off by the downtown express.

The next time I ran into Joan we went to a coffeeshop on upper Broadway. She started talking about Scientology right away, crediting it with her new-found abilities to communicate, solve her personal problems and play her cello better. Scientology was apparently L. Ron Hubbard's update of Dianetics, and of course this mention of Hubbard immediately recalled to me my frustrating late-teens auditing experiment.

Now talking to Joan, Scientology was a further letdown even than the book Science of Survival, a further corruption of Dianetics. At least Dianetics had been simple, understandable and inexpensive. Joan had to pay cash in advance for her auditing, at local Scientology headquarters, a suite of rooms in midtown Manhattan called by the strange-sounding abbreviation "the org." During her sessions Joan was hooked up to a small electric box called an "E-meter" which the auditor used somewhat like a lie-detector to locate hidden problem sources, or "areas of charge." A science fiction note had crept in. Auditing, or "processing," as it was now also called, tended to bring subjects back to "past lives" -- perhaps on other planets. Such incidents were duly "dated" and "verified" on the E-meter. Hubbard had replaced the relatively straightforward routine of running people through traumatic incidents to a state of "clear" with an elaborate-sounding sequence of "Grades" and "Releases." Joan didn't mention "clearing" -- if in fact it was still part of the scheme of things. Instead she spoke of the "thetan," Hubbard's term for "soul."

Clearly, Hubbard, not satisfied with the royalties from Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, had changed the name of his product, thrown in some new gimmicks and started a pseudo-therapy mill. The name "Scientology" sounded phoney, contrived to impress sloppy thinkers that something precise was being administered at the "org." The whole thing gave the lie to Dianetics -- which had obviously never worked. Nor would Scientology work either.

However, I was curious about Joan's cello playing. Here was something tangible. But as it happened, when we got together a week or two later to play duos, I thought Joan played just as well as ever but she seemed more concerned about how she was doing than what she was doing, her chief music-making problem since I'd known her. I heard nothing that day to substantiate the exciting breakthrough she claimed she owed to Scientology.

Not long after that, I discovered that another old acquaintance, Morton Morvis, had "found it." Like Joan, Morton was fascinated by the electrical device. When he was being interrogated with the E-meter, he told me, he felt compelled to reveal to the auditor his innermost thoughts, no matter how outlandish or self-incriminating they might be; and strangely, rather than feeling embarrassed, he relished these exchanges, especially when the auditor happened to be an alluring young female (for some unknown reason he always seemed to get that type of auditor at the New York Org).

Morton was also enthralled by the powerful personality of L. Ron Hubbard, as transmitted to him via lecture films at the org. To Morton, Hubbard was a self-made man, the supreme pragmatist who would succeed at any endeavor and who had drawn on many fields of knowledge to create Scientology. Hubbard was indeed something of a magician, who reached into the air and grabbed fistfuls of physics and engineering with which he plotted the human mind with scientific precision. For all his prodigiousness, Hubbard was down to earth and seemed to speak directly to Morvis, who described Hubbard's presence on the screen as that of a "combination pro football coach, corporation executive and Roman Emperor," who chatted like a Dutch uncle about the whole universe.

Another aspect of Scientology made it, for Morvis, even more enticing than the "processing" with an electrical apparatus -- which made the org sound a bit like a meat-packing plant. He enjoyed entertaining me with tales of the auditor's training course he was taking. One of the skills a prospective auditor had to learn was how to keep a straight face when confronting a "preclear" (one not yet clear). An auditor had to have the self-control not to flinch at the most preposterous irrationalities issuing from the preclear's "reactive mind," Hubbard's older Dianetics term for the part of the psyche that housed the trouble spots. To help the trainee acquire this ability, Hubbard had devised a drill in which a coach played the role of a preclear, rampant with reactive mind and out to shake up the auditor in any way possible. Hubbard called the drill "bull-baiting."

Many coaches tried to make the auditor-in-training laugh. Morton described to me one such session. He and his coach sat in chairs facing each other, the coach almost on top of him with his knees tightly pinning Morton's together. The coach then set out to find Morton's "buttons" -- subjects that would break him up and divert his attention from auditing a preclear. He began with the premise that Morton had a "Jewish button" that needed "flattening" (it happened that most Jewish people had such a button).

"Mister Morvish," crooned the coach, "mosht pipple leff at me ven I szing, but you von't leff et me ven I szing, vill you, Mishter Morvish?" With that, the coach cleared his throat and went into repeated choruses of "Tzum golly golly golly." Other trainees around them took up the refrain, until the tune reverberated in various voice registers, throughout the room. A basso did the "Tzums" like a bullfrog out on the lily-pads; an ingenious girl added as counterpoint Theme from Exodus: "Dai dai ... dai dai ... dai dai dai dai dai DAIEE ..." The org resounded with the music and Morvis' gasps of laughter. Just when he had calmed down a little, a newcomer stepped into the room and announced, "I've just come from the planet Ginsberg in the galaxy Sholom. Did you ever see a thetan wearing a yarmulka?", and they were off again. All told, it took six hours to "flatten" Morvis' Jewish button.

The sexual side of life was often a heavy button also, and this gave Morvis his chance to get back at the young lady who had sung "Theme from Exodus." She couldn't keep a straight face when he bull-baited her with, "I'd love to run my tongue around the area between your cunt and your asshole," the remark delivered with appropriate licking motions. She had the last laugh however -- or, rather, he did -- when she got another turn to bull-bait him. She found that he still had an "unflat button" -- flatulence -- and kept him in convulsions for several more hours with a vocal assortment of blasts and repercussions.

It developed that Joan Porter and Morton Morvis knew each other, either from the org or from the music business. The three of us got together several times, and their relationship intrigued me as much as their stories about an orgful of spaced-out Scientologists breaking each other up with their own training rites. Joan considered herself a more serious and dedicated member than Morton, who was taken above all else with the zanier antics at the org. She thought him frivolous; Morton, in turn, teased her for being uptight, with an "unflat button on Scientology itself." Their semi-playful poking at each other's supposed weaknesses was like a bull-baiting session carried outside the org, with an added element of flirtation. There was something new also in their attitude towards me. Though it was for the most part unstated, I knew they thought I needed auditing (true, along with every other "preclear"), and that it was only a matter of time before I joined them at the org. They would say, "You'll never understand Scientology until you've experienced it." Silly souls! It was inconceivable that my old friends had become regimented -- brainwashed; they were just going through a stage. I would touch fleetingly upon something newly different about them. The next moment they would be quite the same people I had known for years.

Several months after first hearing of Scientology, I knew little more about it than I had before.

Through Joan I met Felicia Lancia, a professional auditor. Joan took me to her apartment one night, after convincing me that Felicia had other interests besides Scientology and wouldn't harp on the subject. Felicia Lancia was a slender attractive woman with magnetically compelling eyes. She and her husband Renzo were also musicians and we hit it off immediately. The Lancias impressed me, in a quiet way. Neither of them was irritatingly demonstrative about Scientology; in fact, Renzo was much more caught up in his composing. Felicia, though more enchanted with it, had kept her balance, I felt, better than Joan Porter had. The Lancias seemed to get along well together, despite Felicia's deeper immersion in the group.

True to Joan's word, no great pressure was put on me to join, though Felicia didn't try to hide her interest. When I played the Lancias' piano, she discerned an esoteric message in the performance and used still another term, "ARC," for the vibrations she received from it. Clearly she meant this as a compliment. Joan called my attention to the luxuriant growth of the plants in the apartment. "Plants need to be Validated the same as people," she said. "Give them plenty of ARC -- Affinity, Reality and Communication. Touch them, compliment them, and they'll flourish for you." I thought this made sense. However, "ARC" sounded a lot like plain old "TLC" -- Tender Loving Care.

Felicia had me try a drill in which I imitated motions of her hands. Only a severely handicapped person would have flunked it. Then she had me direct Joan to walk around the room and touch walls and objects. I was to acknowledge Joan's obedience each time she carried out an order with a "Thank you" or "Good." This quickly got boring. The young ladies thought I did very well at these drills and would make a fine Scientologist someday. I left the Lancias' thinking that if it wasn't Scientology it would something else.

The next week, Felicia asked me to meet her at the New York Org. As soon as I entered the place I was directed to Reception, a stunning blonde whose job, I discovered, was to get visitors to sign up for auditing and courses. Reception wanted me to start immediately on the Lower Grades. As she fixed her gaze unyieldingly on me, I began to get squeamish and tried to avert my eyes from her consuming stare. I told her I wished to hold off for a while to think it over. Hearing that, she launched an attack. It was obvious, she said, that I had problems I wasn't facing up to. Scientology was the only way to Total Freedom and I was sinning against myself by waiting.

I was repelled by her. Breaking away from her penetrating eyes, I located Felicia and took her downstairs for coffee. "I never should have brought you here," she said, smiling. "You're too individualistic for them. Don't blame Reception -- she gets extra credits for anyone she signs up. But it does get to be a bit heavy at times. I'll audit you privately at our place, away from the gung-ho fanatics."

I didn't accept her offer. As much as I liked Felicia, I just wasn't interested in Scientology. I still didn't really know what it was; my friends had never given me a coherent explanation of how it brought the claimed results. Since my Dianetics experience, my mystic leanings had been more towards Eastern thinking, and I had learned to indulge them at little cost in an easy chair at home with the radio on and a paperback by Krishnamurti or Suzuki. Scientology was my friends' elaborate toy. If they felt it helped them, fine. They didn't push it the way the org folk did. As long as none of us tried to impose our own trip on the next person we all got along beautifully. I started seeing the Lancias regularly.

In the fall of '66 I began six months of bus touring with a musical production. It was the worst job I'd ever had. I returned to New York feeling washed-out, not sure what I wanted to do. At that point Felicia reiterated her offer, this time making it more attractive. She would audit me through one grade, which she called a "release," at a lower price than the org's, on an approval basis. I was to continue only if I felt benefit from it.

This might be just the diversion I needed. "Grade 0 Release" would take only an hour or two, she said; and since I had saved money from my last few music jobs, $125 (the org's price was $150 for the grade) would scarcely make a dent. Further, the fee would go to someone I knew and liked, not to the org, poetic justice for the bad time Reception had given me.

There was a muted note of sexual excitement in the prospect of being audited by Felicia. I was to take the passive role in a game of "doctor-and-patient" -- in this case an attractive female doctor -- the feeling of childlike conspiracy heightened by my anticipation of unusual happenings during the sessions. It would be a piquant, novel form of intimacy, with Felicia acting as ringleader. I had no naive hopes of working out my life, solving problems and gaining abilities through auditing, no intention of going beyond the one initial "release." Primarily, I wanted to be a good sport. It would be a lark.

It was April, 1967, perhaps two years after I had first heard of Scientology on a subway platform, that I agreed to let Felicia audit me privately, a harmless little pact that set me apart, I imagined, from those whose involvement with Scientology had been swift and total.

Preclear

I sat across a small table from Felicia. The E-meter, about the size of a large cigar box, was propped up on the table at a forty-five degree angle, its face turned so that only Felicia could see the workings of the needle on the dial. Two tin cans, which formerly might have borne soup labels, were connected to the meter by cords and lay on the table within my reach.

Felicia smiled and explained that we would be doing a process on "communication, the ability to talk to others." She adjusted several small knobs on the box and said in a firmer voice than usual: "Pick up the cans, please ... thank you."

The cans were tarnished with use. I relaxed my grip on them until it felt comfortable. Felicia looked directly into my eyes and said: "This is the process. What are you willing to talk to me about?"

"A lot of things," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll repeat the auditing question. What are you willing to talk to me about?"

"Music," I answered.

"Fine. What are you willing to tell me about it?"

"Anything I know."

"Thank you. Is there anything more on that?"

I told her there was nothing about music that I wasn't willing to talk to her about.

"Thank you," she repeated. "What are you willing to talk to me about?"

"People," I said.

"Good. What are you willing to tell me about them?"

I started thinking. This was a very broad subject; I'd have to do some figuring-out. Felicia's gaze was direct, as if to draw out my response.

"Anything I can."

Gradually I loosened up. I mentioned various subjects. Each time Felicia asked me "Any more on that?", I would answer "No" or make a brief comment, and she would thank me. After a while, Felicia -- or the machine -- seemed satisfied on that question.

"What are you willing to talk to me about?"

There it was again. There must be some simple trick to this, leading me towards an obvious conclusion. There wasn't much of anything I wouldn't be willing to talk to Felicia about. I hesitated. There was something. I winced in instant recognition of the thought that had shot into my awareness, lighting up my brain like a red flare.

"I'll repeat the auditing question. What are you willing to talk to me about?"

"Oh, a lot of things. Just about anything, I guess."

"The needle is reading on something here. What do you think it could be?"

The meter had detected it. I hesitated.

"That -- that!" she cried, spotting reads.

As I sat there clutching the tin cans, I had a sudden urge to really talk to her for the first time, to tell her everything.

"I have this thing about women's asses."

"Thank you. What are you willing to tell me about it?"

"I have this infernal obsession about their asses."

"Thank you. Any more on that?"

"I've always had it."

"All right. Anything more you're willing to tell me about it?"

"That's just it -- I don't know. It's something to do with `looking inside,' but I don't know what it is or why. It all seems silly."

"Fine. If you were to look inside, what do you think you might see?"

"A hole ... a passage ... a tunnel."

"Thank you. Anything else?"

"An elevator shaft, a dishwasher, a green Mercedes," I said, getting into what I hoped was the spirit of it.

"Good. Let's take a look at this. Just keep going. We'll make up a list of all the things you might see."

Feeling somewhat dense, I continued to free associate, adding to the list of everything I "might see," Felicia duly noting each item on a sheet of paper. At one point I felt myself getting closer to the core of the mystery and the reason for my obsession, but the feeling vanished. Felicia urged me on and I kept adding to this list.

When I spoke the word "funnel" I reached it. Something started changing inside my head, bringing a physical sensation, a gentle, probing relaxation, carrying with it a hint of memory of a long-forgotten pleasure. As in a vision, I was looking down into a vortex.

"Maybe I'm reliving something," I said, and as I tried to describe it to her it shaped itself into a cornucopia winding down into the middle of my head, unlocking lost sensations.

"Thank you. Go on."

"It's getting weaker."

"All right. Anything more on that?"

"It's gone now."

Our last exchange of the session occurred shortly after that:

"What are you willing to talk to me about?"

"Anything."

"What are you willing to tell me about it?"

"Anything you want to know."

Felicia smiled and said, "Thank you. That's it for now. What gains have you had from the session?" I was slightly taken aback and told her I hadn't had time to find out.

We met for the next session two or three days later. Nothing had happened in the interim to suggest any "gains" or to throw any light on the "vortex in head" experience. I hoped to explore the "vortex" further; it tantalizingly evoked something from my early childhood -- perhaps to do with my eyesight; I had worn glasses from age eleven and had probably been nearsighted long before that. The only other thought that I remember having right after the first session might have been occasioned by Felicia's auditing mannerisms -- her concentrated gaze and numerous "Thank you's." The thought was that never before in my whole life had I received such pure attention from another person.

Felicia directed me to pick up the cans. Her first question was, "What gains have you had from the previous session?" I replied, "None as yet, but the session itself was interesting."

"Thank you. I'm going to ask you some questions about people you might find difficult to communicate with. This is the process. If you could talk to a policeman, what would you be willing to talk to him about?"

"Whatever wouldn't get me arrested."

"Thank you. If you could talk to a judge, what would you be willing to talk to him about?"

"Anything that wouldn't put me in contempt of court."

"Thank you."

Whenever Felicia was satisfied, she would go on down her list.

"If you could talk to your mother, what would you be willing to talk to her about?"

"I couldn't. She died several years ago."

"All right. Any more on that?"

"She didn't die peacefully."

"Okay. If you could talk to your mother, what would you be willing to talk to her about?"

"I'd tell her I was sorry."

"Thank you. If you were talking to her about being sorry, what would you say exactly?"

"Well, I couldn't be talking to her, really."

"All right. Put down the cans a moment. If it was merely your consideration that you couldn't talk to her, maybe you really could talk to her. I want you to just go along for a minute or two with your mother being here so you could communicate with her. Pretend if you have to."

I gripped the cans again and told my mother that I wished I'd been a better son to her.

At session's end Felicia asked me for my gains. I had none to give her.

About one hour into the third session Felicia started to lean toward me, with the rapt look of a bird-dog sniffing the air. My responses were coming quicker now, and her eyes glowed as though an awesome event was unfolding.

"If you could communicate to anyone, what would you be willing to talk about?"

"Anything. Anything at all."

Felicia spotted the E-meter read she had been looking for and announced: "Thank you. That's it! Put down the cans. Congratulations, Bob, on your Grade 0 Communications Release. Now tell me your gains from the process."

This little speech and especially the question annoyed me. I didn't need an auditor and an electric box to teach me how to communicate. I had paid $125 for an ability I had always possessed, and was now told I had achieved something great.

Even if Felicia were right, it would take me some time to find out for myself -- to see if I were any different, if my life opened up in any way. But there was Felicia with her "gains" again. I had none to report.

I didn't mention to her my annoyance, despite my "communications release" (in fact, I was less outspoken than I might have been before!), but told her I would let her know within a week about taking the next grade.

I would have been happier if the second or third session had brought back the "vortex" experience, yet Felicia was perfectly content with my "release." I didn't understand that. Apparently I had some misconceptions. I did feel there was something to auditing; it had immediately plucked mysterious chords in the past. My relationship with Felicia was also intriguing. It was a kind of challenge. She thought highly of me. Surely nothing could happen on one more grade to lower that opinion.

The following week I made advance payment for the next grade, Problems.

Renzo Lancia told me he was not ecstatic about his wife's "open-house" for her Scientology friends. As a "Scientology widower," he welcomed our music sessions and long walks. Most of Felicia's circle were musicians, but even their professional shop-talk was larded with Scientology jargon.

Joan Porter lived near the Lancias and dropped by most evenings. She habitually spoke in the lingo, taking it into her own airy speculations. This drove Renzo up the wall. Renzo liked to think that Joan's prattle had little to do with the "real Scientology." Surely Scientology had a dignified side, and Joan's flightiness was her own aberration which would be "audited out of her" if she stuck with it long enough.

A guest Renzo found particularly abrasive was Marty Moussorgsky, a non-musician, veteran Scientologist, and one of Felicia's first auditors, who was known in her circle for his knack for auditing preclears to speedy releases through his own free-wheeling departures from Hubbard's Standard Operating Procedure -- a practice the org people would have called "squirreling" had they known about it. Renzo described Marty Moussorgsky as solidly built, blue-eyed and pockmarked, with rough, handsome features and a lot of wavy brown hair. Renzo thought him obnoxious.

I met Marty one evening at the Lancias. Joan Porter and I soon started arguing over how to learn a piece of music. This was typical of our recent exchanges. I made a provocative remark about "the pain certain people come to expect when practicing their instrument." Marty, who was across the room ostensibly in another conversation, bellowed, "And what makes you think you know anything about pain -- or pleasure? You should be able to have or not have both before you go shooting off your mouth."

I discussed the incident with Joan when I saw her home. "Marty always has good reasons for the things he says, even if he seems off-the-wall," she said, "and he's helped a lot of people." "Have" and "Not Have" proved to be Scientology concepts, but this didn't help me to understand Marty's diatribe.

Felicia informed me that she planned to go to England soon for clearing. Because the process was so costly, Renzo would be getting only his "Power Release," a preparation for clearing. Marty had already been over for the Power Processing -- which helped to explain his high stature in Felicia's circle -- but he was forbidden to divulge anything about it to those at lower stages. All processes above the Lower Grades, including clearing, were "confidential" and given only at Scientology central headquarters, located near the town of East Grinstead, Sussex, England.

This raised some questions in my mind: How did Scientology clearing differ from Dianetic clearing? What was the secret method? Had Hubbard discovered something about the mind that made him change Dianetics? Whatever the answers, Felicia was excited about her forthcoming trip. I was curious to see what she would be like after clearing. It made me feel a bit nostalgic to know that clearing had its place in Scientology after all. I'd always wanted to see England. If the process proved stable over the next few years, I might toy with the idea of going to England to try out clearing again. On a lark.

You, as a theta being, may or may not have seen Greece or Rome.

L. RON HUBBARD

"This is the process. Tell me a problem."

"Sometimes living is a problem."

"Fine. If living is a problem, how would you solve it?"

"I don't know."

"Thank you. I'll repeat the auditing question. If living is a problem, how would you solve it?"

"In a lot of ways. In fact, too many ways."

"Fine. What do you consider `too many ways' could be?"

"Be active, be passive, fight it, avoid it, work like hell, be a bum."

"Good. Just give me all your possible solutions."

"Get better jobs, live in an apartment instead of my furnished room, get married, study something new."

"Thank you. Any other solutions?"

"Exercise, stop smoking, eat right, meditate."

"Thank you. Tell me a problem."

"My music."

"Thank you. If music is a problem, how would you solve it?"

"Practice the piano, give a recital, compose, write a book about it ... Something just occurred to me, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with this subject. I'm getting a funny feeling."

"All right. What do you consider it could be?"

"I have a mental picture of Afghanistan. I'm in a tent. There are green fields, flags, horses outside."

"Fine. When is this?"

"The first thought I get is the fifteenth century."

"All right. Is that when it is?"

"Yes, I guess it is."

"Thank you. Anything else on that picture?"

"Yes. I was in Afghanistan on a music tour once. But this is strange. I saw flags and fields last Sunday at a rally in Central Park."

"Thank you. Anything else?"

"There's something different about this. I think there are fires burning, torches sending out clouds of smoke. This is funny -- I don't really believe it, but it's like I've been in that scene."

"Thank you. Anything more on that?"

"I just don't know if this is an actual reliving or a dream or fantasy. I'm sinking deeper into it. This is making me very uneasy. I'm being held captive in the tent."

"Thank you. Anything else?"

"I want to get out. I'm right in that tent imagining I'm outside seeing those horses. They're having a race or a contest or something."

"All right. Any considerations on that?"

"You know, maybe that's what the problem is: They're keeping me inside that tent and I want to get out."

"Thank you. If that were a problem how would you solve it?"

"I can't solve it. I'm stuck in it. I'm a tiny, helpless baby and I can't do anything -- it's all being done to me. I'm not responsible for what's happening."

"I got that! What are your considerations on `responsibility'?"

"The word has unpleasant connotations for me. I associate it with guilt, shame, being told to do things I don't really want to do and being blamed if I don't do them."

"All right. Put down the cans a minute. Here's a standard dictionary. Look up `responsibility' ... Okay, so what does it mean?"

"Yeah, I had it all wrong. `Blame' isn't in there. But I just don't like the word. Something about it rubs me the wrong way."

"I want to make sure you know what the word really means, because one of the goals in processing is to raise your responsibility level so you can accept responsibility for your past."

"Do you think that was a past life I just described?"

"I can't evaluate for you. Please pick up the cans. I want to check something on the meter. How do you feel about responsibility now?"

"I guess I've been reading things into the word that aren't there."

"All right. I'll repeat the question. How do you feel about responsibility now?"

"I don't know where I got that idea. I was never overburdened with responsibilities."

"Thank you. Anything more on that?"

"The word means what it means."

"All right. I'll repeat the process question. If that were a problem, how would you solve it?"

"By being responsible for it."

"Thank you. Tell me a problem."

"Having problems."

"Fine. And how would you solve it?"

"By not having problems."

The auditing sessions I depict here are not verbatim accounts (if they were, I stand guilty of possessing the total recall that L. Ron Hubbard ascribes to a Clear). They are reconstructions, encapsulating in short sequences the key events of several hours of auditing. Felicia's gaze was alert and steady, a stare, but for her quick glances down to the meter dial; her "acknowledgments" of my every response -- "Thank you," "All right," "Good," "Fine" -- rang sincere, as though she were saying, "There! I received your thought and it's all right that you had it and told it to me." Unlike so much of human communication -- whether in psychotherapy, as I imagined, or in everyday life -- in auditing there was no analysis, interpretation, reasoning, comparison, judgment; in fact, very little discussion, since the preclear's responses were simply "computations" registered on the E-meter. The auditor, with her electrical device, did not rise to the colorful, the sexual, the "interesting." The things I considered of possible significance -- memories, emotions, hints of psychic phenomena -- were nothing more to Felicia than flashes of rapidly passing scenery, or perhaps obstructions on the path to a completed process.

This odd blend of the personal and the impersonal somehow provoked surprising responses -- which made me think that auditing did relate directly to me.

An old music school friend phoned me from the West Coast. She asked me about Scientology, which I had mentioned in a letter.

"I don't intend to go very far with it," I said, "but auditing is interesting."

"Do you think it can rid me of guilt, like they promise?"

"It's possible."

"I'm going to try it," she said. "I've got to do something with my life. My marriage is on the rocks and everything is a mess. I'm about ready to crack up."

"But are you sure it's right for you?"

"They claim it works for everybody. I read one of Hubbard's books and some of the things he says I've known all along. I've always believed in reincarnation."

"You know it costs a lot of money."

"I can work on staff here at the local org until I've earned the Grades," she replied. "I've got to try it. It's my last hope."

I felt funny after the conversation and wrote to her the same night: "I'm being audited by friends, not at the central org, and I'm only doing it for kicks. Don't make a commitment yet. Give yourself a little time to rediscover your old self, to feel as you always used to, that life is beautiful just as it is, without these promises of self-fulfilment."

"This is the process. What have you done?"

"I get a strong feeling on that. It calls up all the bad things I've ever done."

"Thank you. I'll repeat the auditing question. What have you done?"

"I've done some good things too, but right now I associate the past with wrongs I've committed. I hear the question as `What have you done wrong?'"

"Fine. Put down the cans a moment. On Grade II we deal with overts and withholds. I want you to look the terms up in this Scientology dictionary."

An "overt" is defined as "a harmful or contra-survival act," a "withhold" as "an undisclosed contra-survival act."

"All right. I'll repeat the auditing question. What have you done?"

I told her some of my "overts" -- harmful acts -- over the years. She took it all down in her report.

"Thank you. Anything more on that?"

"I still feel guilty about something."

"Thank you. What are your considerations on `guilt'?"

"There's certainly no reason for it. None of the things I've done are cardinal sins."

"Thank you. Any more on that?"

"This is absurd. I shouldn't feel guilty about any of the things I've ever done. It's all in the past anyway. Say, I wonder if I committed those `overts' because I felt guilty to begin with? I think we're on to something now."

"Good. Is there something you haven't said?"

During the next few seconds my thoughts returned to our first session. There was still something I hadn't told her -- perhaps something to do with sex -- but what? No, there was nothing left. I was chasing figments!

Now I was getting the knack of being a preclear and quicker at recognizing these fresh choices as they came up in session. I did have a choice; and my choice made the E-meter read one way or another. But now that I spotted the choice could I make it that easily about something so incomprehensible yet so crucial, just to cooperate with Felicia -- (Felicia, intently scanning the meter, was smiling) -- when all my life I had been introspective, preoccupied? But Felicia was already confirming my release.

Joan Porter, who had been in the kitchen studying, came out and gave me a warm congratulatory hug. This would have struck me as ludicrous just a week or two ago. But during this session I had been aware of the choice. Now I had earned their applause.

Being audited felt much more natural now. Felicia's friendly but penetrating eyes no longer intimidated me. At the outset I had averted mine, but now, as Felicia triumphantly pointed out to Joan, I could look her directly in the eye.

I didn't feel pressured or coerced when asked for "gains," either. Still somewhat haltingly, I replied that I knew auditing was helping me, even though I wasn't sure how.

Marty

I subleased the Lancias' apartment for the few weeks they planned to be in England, and had just settled in and started preparing a piano recital when Marty Moussorgsky phoned me. Marty lived in Queens with his parents and made daily forays into Manhattan carrying his E-meter in a valise. Felicia had told me he was a crack auditor, so I should think about completing the Lower Grades with him while she was away. I wasn't enthusiastic about the suggestion, but I trusted Felicia. It wouldn't hurt to try one grade with him as long as I didn't let him make the Lancia apartment his own pied-a-terre.

Grade III deals with personal upsets, called "ARC breaks." Marty had me run through unpleasant encounters I had had with an assortment of people, going back to my earliest childhood. He dated each incident on the E-meter.

Marty audited with dash and verve, as if he were stock car racing, the E-meter his controls. He acknowledged my responses with a terse "All right" accompanied by a snide curl of his upper lip that made me wonder if it was indeed "all right." He interrupted the session several times to volunteer explanations that only made the proceedings less fathomable than before. One interruption was a dissertation on "flinching," an aberration, according to Marty, typical of a person with a reactive mind (apparently I had "flinched").

"Say you're sitting at your piano trying to practice and you keep thinking you see an alligator. `There it is again -- it's coming up through the floor! WHO? WHA ...?' Sometimes you wonder what the fuck's going on. If you stop to think about it, most people go through their whole life like that."

Marty's auditing style seemed to veer him away from the process itself into diversionary improvisations. During the first session he did a "Search and Discovery," to ferret out people in my past who had "suppressed" me. I came up with a grammar school teacher and two bullies in my old neighborhood. Halfway through the second session Marty decided I needed -- another surprise -- Dianetic auditing! (I had thought Dianetics was supplanted by Scientology.) The present Dianetics was much lighter and quicker than the 1950 version. Now only a few engrams were run. Marty directed me through two preliminaries -- a drill on recall and an incident of loss, called a "secondary"; then two childhood engrams -- an ear-lancing and a pleurisy operation. He proclaimed me a Dianetic Release and said I owed him $150 for the additional auditing. I told Marty it was unfair to demand an extra fee on the spur of the moment and I wouldn't pay it. He took my stand so calmly that I got the impression extra fees were just something he took a shot at when he thought there was a chance to collect.

During the next session Marty blew up at me -- for what reason I don't remember; perhaps he thought I'd asked a stupid question. "I'm not going to audit a wise-ass like you!" he yelled, and packed up his meter and auditing reports. I sensed that he wasn't really angry but playing some kind of game. He hesitated at the door, valise in hand, and made a mollifying remark. I was prepared to await Felicia's return from England to finish Grade III, but Marty said, "C'mon! I'll finish the process," got the meter back out and resumed session as though his outburst hadn't occurred.

Renzo told me later that these scenes were typical of Marty's personalized auditing approach; he was known to throw tantrums with preclears just to provoke "ARC breaks" -- personal upsets -- for him to audit out at a subsequent session.

Marty audited me through Grade III to its conclusion with no further histrionics, by running a few more ARC breaks, including the one we had just had.

It's possible that we went on to the final grade in the series that same evening. I don't remember. Nor can I reconstruct why I continued on with Marty. It wasn't because of "gains"; my "releases" hadn't brought any benefit that I was aware of. Felicia and Marty of course wouldn't have agreed with that, and the "progress" I made was also noted, on the perimeter, by Joan and Renzo. I was delighted that they were delighted, and that was really the extent of my "gains."

Whatever made me go on with it, nothing outrageous Marty did interfered with my "progress." Processes were run and "release points" reached.

In other words, I had learned to be a good preclear.

Grade IV was quite different from what preceded. Marty explained that we were going to find my "service facsimile," defined in the Scientology dictionary as "a computation generated to make self right and others wrong, to dominate or escape domination and to enhance own survival and injure that of others. Will cause the individual to deliberately hold in restimulation selected parts of his reactive mind to explain his failures in life." Most service facsimiles are found to consist of a single sentence.

Marty, for what purpose I couldn't guess, asked me to name a few things I'd like to do after the session. He began making up a list. Some of my entries were: eat a steak dinner; eat a girl's ass; go to the movies. When nothing more occurred to me, Marty started reading back the items in a mechanical tone. I could see him jotting down X's and slashes as he moved down the list, nulling out non-reading items, X-ing others and repeating these, always in the same metallic tone of voice:

"eat a steak dinner                     / / X
"eat a girl's ass                       / / /
"go to the movies                       / / /
"eat a girl's ass                       / / / X
"go to the movies"                      / / / /

I don't remember what the final item was. (After the session we went out and ate spaghetti.)

Next Marty had us make up another mysterious list, "girls I've liked." This ran more or less chronologically, starting way back with a babysitter, and proceeding on up through movie queens and high-school sophomores to recent acquaintances. The "most highly-charged item" Marty found on the list, via the E-meter, amazed me: It was "Betty Grable."

Marty finally arrived at the question, What method have you used in life to make others wrong? I tried various words and phrases, as Marty X-ed and /-ed, like a negotiating session with the electric box as mediator. After about an hour of listing and nulling, we arrived at this sentence: "I was deprived and nothing can be done about it." This was the protective mental mechanism I had borne through life like cumbersome armor plating. I had used this phrase to justify my laziness and rationalize my failures, and when I repeated the words they had a nasty familiarity.

I was quite satisfied with the denouement, and this time expected some real gains. True, they wouldn't be firm gains until I had experienced out in the world-at-large what it was like not to have a service facsimile -- an exciting prospect even if it might take several months for the new developments to surface.

I liked that Scientology could involve thought and meaning after all. At last, with the service facsimile, there was a causal connection between reactive mind material and aberrated behavior. The concept reminded me of a book I had read by Dr. Albert Ellis, whose psychotherapy aims at exposing and challenging patients' faulty thinking patterns. Scientology, in fact, had its own word for half-baked thoughts, a word used frequently by Felicia and Marty in session: considerations. Although both Hubbard and Ellis might object strongly to each other's company, this possibility of a linkage with non-Scientological thought gave Scientology some weight, making it intellectually interesting to me for the first time. I didn't pay much attention to a major discrepancy: In Ellis' or other cognitive methods, the therapist encourages the patient to challenge his faulty thinking in real life situations, while in Scientology the preclear is taught that a disclosure which produces the right E-meter read signifies the end of the process -- and by implication, automatic results.

Even with these half-digested morsels, Grade IV didn't make me a believer. I felt I had done well getting through two grades with Marty behind the meter; and in a way glad to be through with auditing.

At that point I could have quit perhaps slightly ahead.

The New York Org

India and "join Nirvana" has given us techniques WHICH ARE GUARANTEED TO GLUE A THETAN TO A BODY AS THOUGH RIVETED AND TIED WITH IRON BANDS.

Marty arranged to me to go to the org to get my grades rehabbed or checked, and a certificate attesting to my release on Grade IV. The New York Org had expanded and now occupied most of the second floor of a midtown hotel. The reception room was dominated by a book counter and an enormous godlike portrait of L. Ron Hubbard ("god's" face, raised at a visionary angle toward the horizon, looked rather bloated and truculent). The place seemed a bit mad, with young people dashing about in the cultists' peculiar state of militant ecstasy.

A young auditor came over and escorted me to a cubicle. He started to rehab my Grades, checking out on the meter the moments of release. His machine-tooled mannerisms put me off. He had only one way of acknowledging, a buttery, unctuous "Thank you" in a light, nasal voice, each "Thank you" an insincere-sounding replica of the last.

Facing him in the cramped cubicle, I had difficulty remembering anything about my previous auditing. He seemed to be running into sticky action on the meter. I hadn't wanted to go to the org in the first place, and the machine was probably registering that fact. After twenty unpleasant minutes, the auditor led me to a room not much larger than the cubicle. A sign above the door said ETHICS. A girl with pigtails and a businesslike air sat at her desk fiddling with an E-meter.

"Pick up the cans. I'll have to do a Search and Discovery," she said brusquely. Presumably I had done something wrong.

"Are you connected to a suppressive person?"

"No," I replied. How could I be? I'd already been through that process with Marty.

"Thank you. I'll check that on the meter. You don't have to reply. Are you connected to a suppressive person? That's clean. Are you connected to a suppressive group? There's a read on that. What do you consider it could be?"

I didn't know what was causing the read but had no intention of trying to get by Ethics with the naive hope of fooling the meter. I searched my brain for an answer. "I used to go to a Zen center for meditation."

"Thank you. Is this the suppressive group?"

"I do a little yoga occasionally."

"Okay, put down the cans," she said. "You'll have to stop mixing practices as long as you're being audited."

"Why should I? I don't do that much meditation or yoga anyway. What harm could they possibly be?"

"Look, when you're finished auditing you can stand on your head if you like, but not while you're being processed. I don't want you doing anything that'll confuse you about what you owe your gains to. Meditation is a kind of looking into your mind, isn't it?"

"Maybe when you've done it for a while. But I haven't."

"You're mixing practices. You'll have to promise to give those other ones up if you want your Grades rehabbed."

"What a minute. `Practices' could apply to a lot of other things. We'd have to go over my whole day from morning to night to figure out what I can do and what I can't. But I'm willing if you have the time."

"Say, are you going to stop mixing practices or aren't you?"

"I'm not giving up anything without a better reason than that."

"Okay. Then we'll just have to chuck it."

"Great," I said, getting up to leave.

"It's just too bad you choose to give up Total Freedom," Ethics said vindictively as I went out the door.

Marty phoned me to see how things had gone. When I told him of the disaster, he asked me to write it up so he could launch an investigation of Ethics at the org. I sent him an account, concluding with "Certain people within the organization itself are abusing Scientology and using Scientology to abuse others." I never heard further of my visit to the New York Org or of Marty's "investigation."

In October of '67, while the Lancias were still away, I gave my Town Hall debut. The attending music critic, as music critics will, wrote some favorable comments, phrased so that my performance came off as rather undistinguished. Next day, a cousin of mine, who had come to New York for the recital, related a strange story. During intermission, a man approached him and his party and said, "That pianist owes this concert to me and the group I represent." My cousin's description of the man fitted Marty Moussorgsky.

Marty himself showed up at the Lancias' apartment a couple nights later. I confronted him with my cousin's story, and Marty -- always ready to whip out his E-meter -- audited me on my "possible ARC break" with himself and my "definite ARC break" with the music critic. He charged me no fee for this.

Several nights later, Marty phoned. "Look, there's still charge on your concert," he said. "Take a cab up to Empress Green's -- Felicia's friend's -- apartment. Be there in twenty minutes. I have to catch a plane." Within half an hour I was seated in the kitchen of an apartment near Columbia University, being run through an impromptu, or "coffee-house," session, again at no cost. Marty decided that my Dianetic levels weren't "flat." I don't recall the engrams I obligingly served up for him except that even at that time I thought they sounded like sheer fantasy. It wouldn't have been a real "Marty session" without some craziness, and by this time I felt like making my own contribution.

I enjoyed Marty's free-wheeling spirit, in an unusual sort of way.

Saint Hill

Renzo Lancia returned to the States minus his wife, who was still doing the Clearing Course. She was taking so long at it that Renzo thought she might be having trouble going clear. The process was a closely-guarded secret, and Felicia had told him only that it had to do with "goals" and that one audited oneself through the course. This suggested that clearing, unlike the Grades, involved some inner struggle.

The Lancias had stayed at a manor called Fyfield, near Hubbard College, Saint Hill, and while Felicia was at "the Hill" taking a preliminary course in self-auditing, and then in their room behind closed door wrestling with the clearing materials, Renzo was free to hang around the manor reading, composing, or strolling in the nearby forest.

Hubbard College was situated in the midst of radiant English countryside. A prospectus Renzo brought back included photos of a splendid acreage with stately manorhouse and bungalow-style classrooms. Here happy, carefree preclears tripped the road to the State of Clear. Prices were given for the courses and processes, along with an imperious-sounding invitation to come to Saint Hill for the "Safe, Sure Way to Total Freedom."

The prospectus announced that now there were new Upper Levels beyond the State of Clear. A Clear, divested of the reactive mind, was like a newborn babe, and still further processing was required to stabilize and reorient him. These higher states, eight in number, were called the OT (Operating Thetan) Levels. There was a drawing of an eight-runged ladder with benign-looking baby ghosts hovering in the air or balancing on the rungs. No hint was given as to the actual content of the Upper Levels. Renzo and I conjectured as to their effects. Perhaps an Operating Thetan would be a citizen of the universe, above sectarianism and drawn to philosophy, the arts and the furthering of world harmony. Renzo had met some Scientologists at the Hill who considered themselves human beings first and Scientologists second. But there were others who sounded like Fascists. To these, the poor and oppressed of the world, the dwellers in mud huts and ghettos, were hopelessly enslaved by their reactive minds and getting exactly what they deserved. The South African Scientologists Renzo had talked to were in favor of apartheid.

A frantic obsessiveness at Saint Hill had made Renzo avoid the place once he had attained his Power Release.

"They jam Scientology down your throat," he said. "If you don't go along with it you're declared suppressive. They've alienated the town of East Grinstead by putting up `declare notices' on bookdealers who won't push Hubbard's books. It's kind of ominous."

Renzo was unhappy about another thing. It had taken him just twenty minutes to complete his Grade V Power Release, at a cost of $1,000. Instead of experiencing gains afterwards, he had gotten sick and spent most of that night vomiting off the terrace of Fyfield Manor.

The OT II

A preclear is in better condition and will audit better exteriorized than "in his body."

L. RON HUBBARD

Renzo got a telegram from Felicia: "CLEAR!!!" Her follow-up letter told him that she would be traveling in France and Italy for a few weeks to unwind. Renzo was uneasy. I knew that Felicia wouldn't have any money left for a vacation, but I didn't probe.

When Felicia returned, I was invited over for my first look at the new Clear. She did seem different, more self-possessed and knowing than before, the privileged holder of a beautiful secret she hoped we would all eventually share.

Felicia had brought with her from England Gerald Tyber, an OT II Class VII Auditor. OT II was the second "Upper Level" above clear and VII was the highest class of auditor. Gerald proudly introduced himself as "the only OT II Class VII alive and well in the Western Hemisphere."

There was nothing noteworthy about Gerald Tyber's appearance, save that he was on the rotund side and his eyes were so often half closed in mirth that tiny crinkles had formed at the sides which made him look much of the time like a contented suckling infant. His manner was a quaint blend of old-fashioned graces and glib familiarity that I took at first as a put-on. He treated everyone in the room as co-conspirators in his friendly banter, while putting such gusto into common courtesies -- "please" and "thank you" -- that I remember thinking "He can't mean it, but it's charming and flattering." He spoke of his arrival in the States as if it were a game. He seemed above petty upsets; even an unpleasant encounter at Customs hadn't ruffled him.

Gerald had come to America to open his own Scientology franchise, with Felicia as his partner. Scientologists with certification from Saint Hill could establish their own auditing enterprises, provided they followed Hubbard's Standard Operating Procedures and sent him ten percent of their take. Only a few did this (at the time there were only about four franchises in New York City); most Scientologists earned their living doing other things or worked at an org for low wages. Without quite saying so, Gerald managed to convey that the org members were poor business people with somewhat masochistic tendencies. While looking for a suitable apartment for the franchise, Gerald would be sleeping on the Lancia living room sofa. This arrangement struck me as peculiar, but by this time I was reluctant to harbor any "considerations" on the behavior of Clears and OTs. I was enormously impressed by Gerald. There was a world of confidence behind his hail-fellow manner and rich, meaty laugh. Here he was, just starting a new business in a foreign country, having as it were just dropped in with his overnight bag, acting as casually assured as the man in the white apron tossing dough in the pizza parlor.

Renzo was out when I stopped by the next day, and Felicia told me that their marriage was breaking up -- and Renzo didn't mind. I assumed that Felicia's clearing had something to do with it; a Clear would see things afresh and have the freedom to make long-put-off decisions. I had had no inkling of any marital trouble until Renzo's solitary return from England.

Later that day, Renzo told me that the breakup had been inevitable and he concurred with it. Unbeknownst to their friends, the marriage had been stormy, and now that they had decided to part their relationship was friendlier than it had been for years. But just in case Renzo felt any rancor over the turn of events, Gerald Tyber had offered to give him extra auditing -- called "review" -- at no cost.

Gerald suggested I also have review, at $25 an hour.

I was all for it. When I'd heard that Gerald gave "review sessions," I realized I had had some doubts about my previous auditing, especially Marty's disjointed late-night sessions. An OT II Class VII was just the person to straighten it out.

I immediately liked Gerald's auditing. His acknowledgments sounded as gracious as they did out-of-session. By comparison Felicia's auditing technique was scratchy. Being auditing by Gerald was like cruising in a Rolls-Royce equipped with bar, stereo and oriental rugs.

I mentioned a possible lingering ARC break with Marty. Gerald ran a Search and Discovery process which revealed Marty as "suppressive" to me. Also unearthed as a suppressive was the doctor who presided at my birth. In the incident I saw contrasts of light and dark. Then I recalled an incident at some unknown time when I felt I was out of my body, or "exteriorized." I had floated into a room and was hovering over a sofa.

"He's screwing her," I said.

"Fine," said Gerald. "Go through the incident."

"That's all there is to it. I see a man and a woman screwing on the sofa."

"All right. Anything more on that?"

"I don't know who they are, but I think I'm being suppressed in the incident."

"Thank you. I'd like to indicate that the meter has validated that you are being suppressed in the incident."

Gerald rehabbed my Grades, beginning with Marty's Dianetic auditing and on through Grades 0 through IV.

"I'd like to validate that `I was deprived and nothing can be about it' is your service facsimile," he concluded his summary. "All right, sire. You have a beautiful, clean floating needle. That's it!"

We had been at it for four hours. It didn't seem to matter whether I'd really been out of my body or whether such possibility explained my recurrent dreams of disembodied wanderings. By now I was fully into the routine and willing to forego any questioning in favor of swift progress through a session. When Gerald asked, "What gains, your honor?", I told him with conviction that I felt lighter and freer.

The Dianetics Course

I would not give you this data unless it can be demonstrated on any preclear with ease. And I would not give it to you unless you needed it.

L. RON HUBBARD

Felicia and Gerald rented a large penthouse apartment on the Upper West Side and announced a course in Dianetics at a cost of $500. The status of Dianetics in Hubbard's newer system was a mystery, but he had made the Dianetics Course a prerequisite for clearing. I had not decided to "go clear," but signed up for the course anyway because I liked being around Gerald. Before I would lay down the money, however, I confessed to Gerald that I was annoyed about paying him so much for review.

"I gave you a very good deal, your honor," Gerald said. "The Search and Discovery alone would've cost you $100 at Saint Hill. The only way to handle it is is more review. C'mon. We can clean this up right now."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "We've already done four hours."

"It's obviously not complete if you don't feel totally right about it. What can I tell you?"

Within moments I was seated at the auditing table gripping the tin cans. We reviewed Gerald's first review and spent more time on Marty to remove any residual charge from the ARC break.

"There's something else bothering me," I said. "I still have this thing about women's asses."

"Thank you. What are your considerations on women's asses?"

"Every time I see an attractive woman, or sometimes maybe not so attractive, the very first thing I want to gape at her ass."

"All right. We're going to run a process on ass. What does ass mean to you now?"

"You want my first thought? Money. Irritation over money."

Gerald repeated the question "What does ass mean to you now," pencil in hand to list my answers.

"I'm thinking of this guy I knew from South Carolina who used to say, `Ah saw this gal today, man, you sho' woulda dug that l'il ayee-uss.'"

"Thank you. Repeat that phrase."

"Man, you sho' woulda dug that l'il ayee-uss."

"Fine. And again."

"Man, you sho' woulda dug that l'il ayee-uss."

"Good. What does ass mean to you now?"

"I took a prostitute home last night. This morning I felt guilty about it."

"Thank you. Tell me about it."

"I didn't really want to go with her. I would've preferred another one, who wasn't around."

"Thank you. Any more on that?"

"I felt sorry for her."

"Thank you. Any more on that?"

"You know, I don't think I feel guilty at all. It's just that I wasn't that keen on spending my money on her to begin with. Realizing that makes me feel a lot better."

"Thank you. What does ass mean to you now?"

"Ass is ass."

Gerald thanked me for my cognition. Review had gone over three hours and to make it an even four Gerald threw in the Money Process, which he said would "blow off" any considerations I had on money. Certain preclears had told Gerald that once they had had the process money began rolling into their pockets from unexpected sources.

The process question was "How would you waste money?" Gerald listed my answers, and I had another cognition: I didn't waste money; I wasted myself when I regretted spending money. Gerald indicated that the meter showed a "clean, free floating needle," and thanked me for the cognition. The review was over. I felt a sense of well-being. Gerald had audited me to insights that made me feel on top of things. I had no reservations about the grand total of $200 for review, and the next day cheerfully gave him $500 for the Dianetics Course.

The class was small: Renzo, Felicia's sister and her husband, two middle-aged women, and myself. Felicia and Gerald kept things casual. Students could arrive late, leave early, or miss classes with impunity, and the class met only once or twice a week. Our first assignment was to listen to twelve lecture tapes on Dianetics and Scientology, and this project stretched on to several weeks. Of a typical night, Gerald would set a ninety-minute tape on the machine, go into the bedroom to audit a preclear -- Felicia was generally auditing in another room -- and return later to deliver his own lecture, which he called a special bonus of the course. The tapes sounded like re-recordings and the acoustics of the penthouse living room were abysmal, so that many of the words were blurred. The voice that came out of the speaker was friendly, folksy and confiding, with a punch to it like a freshly-opened can of coffee. It belonged to L. Ron Hubbard, whom the Scientologists called simply "Ron."

The capabilities of the theta being cannot at this time be set down in a full sweep of data .... It would be unfair to tomorrow to detail them in writing.

L. RON HUBBARD

The thetan is pure spirit and has no mass, energy, location, or wave-length except as it postulates them. Thus the thetan is not a thing but a creator of things, a static which creates with its own postulates the physical universe of MEST -- Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

The thetan can be inside and outside a MEST body at the same time (its ideal location is near a body and in control of it). A thetan does not die. A thetan is telepathic, can move objects without touching them with MEST and is unbounded by any MEST limitations. Theta beings are sociable, have a high sense of justice and are interested primarily in esthetics.

You are a thetan. You are not your mind or your body or your name. You are You. In your original state you possessed total awareness of yourself as an immortal spiritual being. You possessed the ability to create your own universe, your own world, and your own body.

Margo Zumbrich, one of my classmates, was usually in session with Gerald during the running of the tapes. Gerald had recently audited her to Grade IV Release, but her new awareness proved painful to her, and she was nervous and depressed. Numerous review sessions with Gerald brought her only temporary relief. Gerald confided to me that he had had misgivings about auditing her to begin with. Many years before she had received shock treatment for an emotional breakdown following her release from a Nazi concentration camp, and such cases were classified "inauditable."

Renzo was also having a rough time. He came to one or two Dianetics classes, then dropped out. Gerald told me he had started giving Renzo the free review he'd promised, but Renzo sometimes failed to keep their appointments. Gerald felt that Renzo was stubbornly clinging to a state of apathy.

Empress Green, a tall, amply-built woman with an abundance of teased hair, was the only student other than myself who consistently showed up for class. Sometimes we kidded around while listening to Hubbard's tapes. There was irritation behind our levity. It was draining to be bombarded for ninety minutes with words we often had to guess at while being tossed like flotsam about the dimly-lit room by that pounding voice. Empress and I sat side by side on the sofa, through the hours, straining to hear Ron's message.

... for by just that much could he be predicted and brought again into a low state.

L. RON HUBBARD

The trouble with a thetan was that it could deteriorate. From its static state it began to create MEST, as a game, because it was bored. It created itself a MEST body. Fine! Then what socked it down-scale till it fell out the bottom? Why, it forgot it ever created! It denied any responsibility (and there were plenty of malicious beings in the universe to help it along in this), and in so doing it became Effect rather than Cause. Having given up its spiritual identity, the thetan was trapped, hypnotized to a state of total unconsciousness, and enslaved.

A thetan can be reeducated to be again AT CAUSE. We now have the only technology which will restore you to your former high estate, a technology so swift that you will climb the series of Grades to the Upper Levels in a few hours. Then you will be capable of changing your present MEST body -- its weight, its height ... its appearance.

When the lecture was especially muffled, Empress and I might doze off. Once we were awakened by Gerald entering the living room to give his lecture. Gerald was always bouncy and exuberant, whether he was lecturing to two people or to twenty, as he might do on a guest night. He was generally coatless and tieless at the beginning of class. By the time the tape had played out he would have put on the tie and blue jacket that Felicia affectionately called his "lecture clothes."

"You're looking well, your most royal majesties," he would begin, smiling at each member of his audience in turn. His voice carried well, and he paced about the living room as he spoke. If he felt one of us wasn't giving him proper attention, he'd stop in his tracks, and, eyes and mouth drawn back in slits of mirth, address the offender: "Are you with me?" Gerald's lectures were lively and entertaining. He had a graphic skit about the reactive mind, or "the soobconscious," as he pronounced that word, which I asked him to repeat on several occasions, the way a child might beg to hear a favorite Mother Goose rhyme. He likened the reactive mind to a tiger which is methodically destroyed by Scientology processing. On the Dianetic levels the tiger is caged, and observable at a distance. On Grade 0 we draw closer and cut off its left front claws, on Grade I the right front; the grades through IV and the preliminaries to clearing dispose of the hind claws and leave the animal toothless and tailless. Now we are ready for clearing, the total obliteration of the tiger. I was particularly enthralled when Gerald, to conclude his demonstration, jumped violently about the room, his paunch joggling, hacking away at the hapless beast with an imaginary machete.

Another of Gerald's patters that I especially liked was on a reactive mind mechanism called the missed withhold.

"A withhold is an attempt to hide an overt, or harmful act," he explained. "Usually when you've committed an overt, you go out of your way to avoid telling anyone. That's a withhold. Now, a missed withhold occurs when you think someone may have found out about your withhold, or, really, your overt. Something makes you think they're on to you, but you're not quite sure and you go nuts wondering whether they actually know or not. For example, you come home late at night, you've cheated on your wife, you're coming in through the kitchen door, and the dog looks at you kind of funny. He's wagging his tail but he's looking at you kind of funny. And you kick the dog. That's a missed withhold.

"And now I'm going to tell you one of the innermost secrets of existence, your assembled highnesses. If you fully digest this, you'll understand human behavior." He winked. "If anyone ever criticizes you a little too harshly for some unknown reason, you know one thing for a fact: He's done something to you. He's committed an overt on you, and he has a withhold on it, and a missed withhold, he's not sure whether you know or not. That's why he attacks you -- to justify his original overt. Don't let him get away with it. Make him sit down and face you, and say to him, `What did you do to me?'"

"Out of a clear blue sky?" asked Empress.

"Exactly. Don't let him off the hook. `Now come on, be honest, tell me what you did to me,' looking him dead in the eye. Don't stop until he gives it to you. Then he'll feel better and you'll feel better and you'll be friends. He'll thank you the rest of his life for what you did for him."

"How true," I thought, "how profound. This explains a lot about human behavior." I could hardly wait to apply Gerald's technique in the world outside the franchise. Unfortunately, for the week or so that the missed withhold was strong in my mind, no one criticized me unfairly. An ideal test would have been to confront a young lady who had said what I thought were some strange things a few years previous when we were breaking up our relationship. If I could get her into a coffeeshop I would fix my eyes on hers from across the booth and demand, "All right. What did you do to me in 1960?" Since there was no way short of kidnapping that I could bring about such a confrontation, I never found out if Gerald's strategy would work on her.

Every Sunday evening was guest night at the franchise. Gerald would give an introductory lecture that began with "Scientology's origins in Eastern thought," and included a standardized speech on the benefits his listeners would receive if they signed up for the Grades: ability to communicate freely, ability to solve problems, freedom from guilt, freedom from personal upsets, and development of talents to the fullest. He also touted the Dianetics Course, "which will show you how to understand your own mind and deal with the reactive mind in others." Felicia would unfold a large chart showing the sequence of Scientology training and processing by a network of columns, boxes filled in with Scientology terms, and arrows pointing upwards, which to the uninitiated might have resembled a buried treasure map on another planet.

Gerald used the scattergun approach in building his practice. More than once he urged me to bring as many guests as I could, and he wanted me to make him up a list of my friends' phone numbers. This type of promotion annoyed me. I brought people on a couple of evenings but was embarrassed when Gerald mispronounced certain words and repeated his major points several times as though he were addressing mental incompetents. Gerald was also guilty of maudlin sentiments (this had particularly appalled Renzo): "Always remember that you are really very beautiful beings, and look for the beauty in others. People are basically beautiful and good. Cultivate the roses, not the thorns, be willing to Grant Others Beingness, and you will walk out of the black night of misery into the green fields and blue skies of serenity."

Of course, a lot of people just weren't interested in Scientology, or considered the cost of processing outrageous and Gerald a pushy salesman out for a quick buck. Yet Gerald always had a steady flow of preclears arriving at the franchise.

I didn't stop attending the Sunday night lectures until long after I knew in advance everything Gerald would say. I started to enjoy the repetition. Gerald's constant recitation of gains began to have a pleasing effect on me. Previously, the only grade that had "caught me" was IV, the service facsimile. The umpteenth time I heard Gerald's recap of the Grades my gains became real to me. It was my gains Gerald was talking about -- Communications Release, Problems Release, and the rest.

I thought back to my piano recital: the incentive to rent Town Hall, practice all summer, make my debut as I'd intended for years; my ability to communicate to a sizeable audience. It was plain now that my recital had been a result of processing after all. Though I had resented Marty for saying so, I owed it to Scientology.

This is useful knowledge. With it the blind again see, the lame walk, the ill recover, the insane become sane and the sane become saner.

L. RON HUBBARD

There were about thirty bulletins in the Dianetics study pack, each running from one to four mimeographed pages stapled together and bearing a date in the range of 1962-67. This presentation suggested that Hubbard had dashed off articles over the years and selected from this material when he decided to make up a course.

The bulletin "Healing, Insanity, and Troublesome Sources," emphasized that "healing" refers only to "the relief of difficulties from mental or spiritual causes," and that the org should direct a preclear seeking physical relief to have an examination by a medical doctor. If his condition does not prove to be unarguably "physical," it is presumably "mental or spiritual in origin," and he could be processed. A similar clause provided for preclears with a mental record: A person who has no history of "deserved institutionalization" is classified "auditable."

The "Healing and Insanity" policy gave orgs and franchises plenty of leeway in signing up preclears. I was sympathetic to this. Obviously every preclear needed to cure something. I agreed with the not-so-subtle suggestion in the policy's wording that whatever needs curing is probably mental or spiritual in origin; and that Scientology held more promise of cure than the doctors, with their tranquilizers, unnecessary operations, shock treatment, and patients rotting away in mental wards.

Certain types of individuals considered "inauditable" were called PTS (potential trouble source): those who have ever threatened to sue or embarrass Scientology; those collecting information for a magazine or newspaper article on Scientology; those who wish to judge Scientology; persons with a criminal record; those who are curious, just want to see if Scientology works. I smiled at "curious"; I had had "PTS tendencies" until quite recently and my Scientology friends had either not noticed or not cared.

There followed a description of the suppressive, also called the "antisocial personality" or "anti-Scientologist." The suppressive speaks in generalities, such as "They say"; changes any news he passes on to others to bad news; doesn't believe people can be helped to get better; attacks wrong targets -- if a suppressive's car breaks down, he beats his wife. A preclear who is "connected to a suppressive" doesn't hold his auditing gains. The auditor runs a Search and Discovery; when the suppressive is detected, the preclear is ordered to write him or her a "disconnect letter."

I doubted that anyone in Felicia's immediate circle had ever written a "disconnect letter," and neither Marty nor Gerald had asked me to disconnect from suppressives. Hubbard, in equating people with suppressive characteristics to "anti-Scientologists," had apparently reverted to his science fiction and adventure writing of the '40s. Felicia and Gerald confirmed their casual attitude toward "suppressives" by giving me a cursory checkout on the bulletin, after which I felt I could forget the whole matter.

A chart called the Tone Scale listed in numerical order the states of being of the thetan, or spirit. Between 0 and 20 lay "apathy," "covert hostility," "grief," "fear," "antagonism," "boredom," "cheerful enthusiasm," and "exhilaration." "Raising the preclear's tone level" was indeed one way to define the purpose of Scientology training and processing.

Below zero on the Tone Scale chart were several states of being denoted by minus numbers, among them, "hiding" and "needing bodies." I asked Gerald to explain.

"It's very simple, your honor," he said. "The scale above 0 represents the gamut of human conditions, and one can go the range from apathy to exhilaration in seconds. The scale below 0 brings in the total spiritual condition of the thetan, which has much greater depth. Of course, death of the physical body doesn't mean the extinction of the thetan -- although most people who are ostensibly `alive' are somewhere on the lower part of the chart when it comes to awareness of their own awareness, if you know what I mean, sire. In other words, below death ..."

Bluntly, auditing can't be at optimum without an electropsychometer. An auditor auditing without a machine reminds one of a hunter hunting ducks at pitch black midnight, firing his gun off in all directions.

L. RON HUBBARD

The face of the E-meter was topped by a thin layer of glass. Its most conspicuous feature was the large needle dial running about two-thirds its width. During a session electric current passed through the preclear's hands, forming a circuit with the meter, and needle action was said to be caused by the preclear's reactive mind just below conscious level. A smaller needle dial, reflecting the preclear's moment-to-moment state during auditing, was called the tone-arm, perhaps to avoid being confused with the Tone Scale -- general states of being not "read" on the meter. Tone-arm numbers ranged from 1 to 7; between 2 and 3 was considered the ideal area, above 4 denoted tension.

Drills using the E-meter were part of the Dianetics Course. E-meter technology helped to make Dianetics much simpler than in 1950. It was no longer necessary to run a preclear's every engram (incidents which could be quite hideous). The auditor ran just one "chain," watched the large dial for a "floating needle," and when the needle drifted about in a lazy, gliding motion with "Good Indicators in" (preclear cheerful and having cognitions) and the tone-arm number not too high, announced end-of-process. Two preliminary processes gave the preclear (and the auditor) an even softer time of it: ARC Straightwire, a drill on recalling communications, emotions, and "real things"; and Secondaries, the running of one or two moments of loss.

Another bulletin advised auditors to "put in an R-Factor" before each process, a brief explanation of any new Scientology words or phrases. The "R" stood for "Reality."

Margo Zumbrich, who had finally completed her review with Gerald, was my training partner in a series of drills called TRs. These covered the basic auditing skills: looking in the preclear's eyes, giving auditing commands, and acknowledging responses, all while "keeping in ARC (Affinity, Realty and Communication)." A + R + C equals understanding. To a non-Scientologist, ARC might seem to mean a pleasing personality; to a Scientologist, ARC was part of the mystique of auditing. Through much repetition, the names of the training drills -- TR-1, TR-2, etc. -- acquired a distinctive usage: Students and auditors not only practiced TRs, they had TRs ("Her TR-4 is beautiful").

Margo and I began with TR-0 in the privacy of the franchise master bedroom. Our task was to sit face-to-face, quite still, looking into each other's eyes and simply be there. Movements of the face or body, excessive eye blinking or apparent wool-gathering would draw "Flunk!" from the partner playing "coach." To pass the drill we had to sit motionless yet with no appearance of rigidity for two hours.

After a few minutes of staring, our eyes started to water. Despite our efforts to prevent blinking we had fits of it, with copious discharge of tears. The desire to swallow was a problem, and in trying not to gulp, our faces tensed up. Persistent looking into each other's eyes numbed us.

Periodically Gerald came into the room to coach us: "Flunk her, Bob. Don't you see her neck stiffening on the left side?" or, "Flunk him, Margo. His face is registering Grief. He's getting low-tone."

Margo and I spent an entire evening and part of another doing TR-0 before Gerald checked us out on it. By the second evening we were quite used to staring at each other.

We went on to "bull-baiting." Margo worked the button "Why hasn't a nice young man like you found a wife?" Then she played a nymphomaniac trying to seduce me. Gerald came in and told us to switch student-coach roles, and I made Margo laugh by imitating a baby gorilla bouncing a new rubber tire.

Gerald whispered in my ear, "There's a lot more to bull-baiting than laughs. Work her on the button not there for a while and you'll see what I mean. Tell her `You're not there.'"

I taunted Margo: "You can't confront this. You want to escape into your thoughts. You're not there."

Her expression changed to anguish. I kept at it. Gerald chimed in, "Good! Keep it crisp. She's coming a helluva ways up the Tone Scale. There! She's more alert now."

Other TRs taught us to confront preclears' eccentricities, to repeat a phrase over and over in the same tone of voice, and to acknowledge responses. TR-4 is a combination of all that precedes; it is almost real auditing. The student has to get answers to his questions in spite of distractions thrown his way by the coach. The patter runs something like this:

"Do birds fly?"

"What kind of birds?" (coach evades answering by asking a question)

"I'll repeat the auditing question. Do birds fly?"

(Coach flaps arms -- now he is bull-baiting)

"I'll repeat the question. Do birds fly?"

"No." (an answer)

"Thank you. Do fish swim?"

"Say, I had an illuminating experience last night ..." (etc., etc.)

(Auditor listens) "Fine. I'll repeat the auditing question. Do fish swim?"

The TRs reminded me of the components of an assembly line, at the end forming the final product. L. Ron Hubbard had evidently devised this mode of instruction, fun, for the most part, and easy to follow, to make auditors out of persons of average intelligence -- or perhaps not quite at that level.

One of the bulletins tells how to proselytize. There are four steps in a proper dissemination: Contact -- approach the subject; Handle -- soften any objections to Scientology; Find subject's "ruin" -- everybody has a major problem or weakness; Bring subject to an understanding -- indicate that Scientology can solve the subject's "ruin" and take him in for processing.

Disseminators are not to take no for an answer, and to pass the "dissem" drill I almost had to use physical force on Gerald, who took the role of a homosexual alcoholic plying me with drinks while steering me towards the bedroom. In Gerald's preclear days, students who were critical of dissemination or poor at it were suspected by the others in the group to be hiding something -- perhaps suppressive tendencies. Gerald himself had been a daring and relentless disseminator. He once grabbed a man by the arm on a London street corner, shouted "You'll do!" and dragged him to the nearby org.

Gerald made ARC, the TRs and the rest of it sound like simple common sense. The point was to let the preclear talk, get things off his chest. Hubbard called criticism of Scientology "nattering." A nattering preclear had "considerations about Scientology" and should be encouraged to talk until he "got them off." If a preclear seemed nervous or preoccupied, he might have a present-time problem. Again, a sharp auditor "got some charge off" before starting a process.

Gerald, who was proud of his ability to "crack any case," told me a story about his encounter with an "inauditable preclear": "When I was an intern at Saint Hill I was given a preclear who was one of the biggest fanatics in the place but never held his gains. He claimed the only reason he went on with auditing was his utter faith in L. Ron Hubbard. The staff busted their humps on him. I was known as the acme case-cracker at the Hill, and they finally turned him over to me.

"I audited him a total of thirty hours and just as I was about ready to give up I had an inspiration. I said to him, `I've just received a message from Ron,' pulled out a blank piece of paper and pretended to read it to him: `I, L. Ron Hubbard, hereby confess that Scientology is all a hoax. I created it to amuse myself, as well as make a buck, and every morning I wake up laughing to know that I've perpetrated the biggest con job in history.'

"I'd been watching the needle out of the corner of my eye. The first sign that anything was happening was a blow-down of 1.5 on the tone-arm dial. Then my preclear shouted, `I knew it! I knew it all along, but I didn't have the guts to admit to myself that it's a big crock. Ron Hubbard is full of shit. I'm a free man!'

"With that cognition, he had a floating needle, and I had wrapped up another `impossible case.'"

I made up a list of possible preclears. Several of my friends were obliging; though not attracted to Scientology, they were willing to receive free auditing to help me pass the course. First I did a practice run with Margo of a light moment of loss while Gerald stood by prompting. Afterwards, I remarked to Gerald that she seemed a lot more cheerful than when I had met her. He agreed that she was now "well up on the Tone Scale and starting to think gains."

Renzo Lancia was not doing as well. He was still depressed and hadn't come to the franchise in several weeks. At his apartment I lectured him on "looking at the bright side," and tried to get him to resume review sessions with Gerald. This provoked a tirade:

"Those Scientologists live in a world of make-believe. Felicia went ape on it -- that's really what ruined our marriage. After she started hanging around the org I couldn't get her to go to the dentist with her mouthful of cavities. She believed that when she went clear all the decayed teeth would drop out and she'd grow new ones. When she was auditing you she probably had an aspirin sitting on her tooth.

"And that guy Marty -- he actually audited me over the telephone one night. He happened to call and I made the mistake of complaining of a headache. He said, `Hold on. I'm gonna put you right inta session.' I protested. He yelled, `Will ya shaddup! Just do what I ask for one minute. What's the first date that comes inta your head?'

"`1845.'

"`All right. Now what's happening?'

"`It's a hanging. It's me, they're hanging me ...'

"He ran me through it a couple times, rang off to watch TV and left me right in the middle of it. When I got up the next morning I thought my neck was coming apart."

Renzo was discouraged about his case. "The Saint Hill auditors screwed up my Power Processing. That's why I got sick right afterwards. Besides all the money for Power, then I had to shell out a couple hundred for extra review auditing, and now Gerald wants me to go back to the Hill to straighten things out because they won't let him rehabilitate Power here in the States."

I discussed his situation with Gerald and he agreed that there was an "Outness" on Renzo's case.

"But I don't think he can afford to go back to England now," I said.

"Have no fear, your honor. I'll contact the Hill and request special permission to help him. In the meantime try to cheer him up, and forgodsake get him to come and see me."

Then Renzo told me what bothered him most: With all the other men in the world, his wife had left him for Gerald. Renzo had tried to hold the marriage together through Felicia's Scientology craze by going along with it and even looking for the good in Scientology. Now a roly-poly OT II had set up housekeeping with his wife and as the crowning mockery tried to mollify him with free auditing.

I had thought Renzo had accepted the breakup, but obviously he had "considerations." Now I began to get suspicious. He had gotten his Power Release, yet professed that Scientology hadn't helped him. Bitter and self-defeating, he disdained free review. There must be something basically wrong with him. Perhaps Renzo was a suppressive.

But Gerald repeatedly averred that people were basically good, that one should look for the roses, not the thorns. Renzo had never actually warned me not to go to Saint Hill. He had been pleased when I reported gains, and months ago his idealistic projections about Scientology's future had helped influence me to take auditing more seriously.

No, Renzo was good, he was my friend, and there was still hope for him. He had a negative streak which brought on his troubles. Only a fanatic would call that a "suppressive characteristic." Still, I would have to be careful not to let him pull me down to his low tone level.

Auditing Live Preclears

The Dianetic clear is to the current normal individual as the current normal is to the severely insane.

L. RON HUBBARD

Before I could get my first preclear on the tin cans and into session, he volunteered that he was so disturbed by a personal problem that he was afraid he'd be a poor auditing subject and create a no-win situation for me. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and asked him if he wanted to discuss anything, then see how he felt about proceeding. For almost an hour he talked about his "present-time problem." After several years of a supposed ideal marriage he had fallen in love with another woman and was contemplating ways to make his wife think he was homosexual because that might hurt her less than the truth.

After our chat he felt relieved enough to let me audit him. Everything went smoothly. Within two hours I spotted floating needles on recall, moments of loss and engrams, and called Gerald in to check out the releases.

Some of my other preclears were not successes. Two women had sexual problems they wouldn't divulge. Another woman wouldn't abstain from tranquilizers for 48 hours preceding session, per Hubbard's instructions. A young man I was congratulating for his release on engrams told me he had been stoned for the last week. Gerald was able to check him out -- a close call. Another man broke a lamp in the franchise living room before session and had such a big ARC break with himself, or the lamp, that his tone-arm needle "stuck" and I couldn't run the process. However, I audited several other people to Dianetic Release without any difficulty.

My last preclear had already been audited by Gerald but was still low-tone. I felt highly complimented when Gerald turned her case over to me. He advised me that she had floating needles with the tone-arm below 2 and "Good Indicators Out," an indication of "lack of responsibility." She had managed to avoid confronting highly-charged engrams and moments of loss, and I was "not to let her off the hook even if she twisted for a week."

I ran her down a series of marital quarrels. She went back to past lives to evade present-time charge. I directed her to her first quarrel and made her run it over and over again. She went up and down the Tone Scale, weeping at the lower numbers. Well into our third evening, we reached the basic engram, in which she was a baby lying next to her mother, who was screaming in pain. After repeated runnings she became cheerful and the needle floated with the tone-arm now between 2 and 3. I jubilantly summoned Gerald. He congratulated me on winning this Dianetic Release and said I was a great auditor.

Auditing a preclear was even more rewarding than being one. It gave me a feeling of benevolent power to question someone and obtain his or her responses -- often intimate disclosures -- while watching the action on the machine. Especially the last preclear, who had in a sense allowed me to perform a delicate and risky procedure when I had barely learned the rudiments of auditing! There was something irresistible about this whole arrangement.

Gerald had said that when it came to awareness most people were below death on the Tone Scale. True. After auditing a few individuals, I saw life from a new perspective. It felt good being around Gerald and Felicia. The atmosphere at their penthouse was gay and effervescent, the world outside shrouded in futility. What did most people have to look forward to?

A Scientology Party

... to bring an individual into such thorough communication with the physical universe that he can regain the power and the ability of his own postulates.

L. RON HUBBARD

As I was the first franchise student to complete the Dianetics Course, Gerald threw a party in my honor. About thirty people showed up. Gerald called for everyone's attention, announced my graduation and presented me with a blue certificate. Then, as he had forewarned me, I was expected to make a "success speech." For some reason at that moment I lost the spirit of celebration. I felt embarrassed and slightly dazed, and had trouble controlling my voice. To make it worse, several org people were present.

After my "speech," one of them, a young man, approached me. He fairly bristled with TRs (training-acquired skills), fixing me with an aggressive stare and acknowledging my end of the conversation with abrupt "Goods" and "Fines" that smacked me in the face like a wet fish. He wanted to know when I planned to go to Saint Hill for clearing. I hesitated. Perhaps he thought I lacked funds for processing -- a clinging aberration -- for he hit me with a particularly strong dose of TR-0 and said, "You'd better Put in your Postulates to go Clear."

Aside from eye-lock and acknowledgment, the org people's most notable mannerism was their speech patterns, almost another language in itself. Of course by this time I had had ample exposure to Scientology jargon, but the org members seemed to be trying, as faithful disciples, to outdo their leader himself, combining usages from Hubbard's writings and tapes into an "L. Ron Hybridization" of English.[*]

[*] Footnote:

Appendix N contains a Dictionary of Scientologese.

Late in the evening as the party wore on Gerald and I took refuge out on the terrace. "You know, your honor," he said, "being a Clear and an Operating Thetan isn't always easy. At times I feel that I have few real friends, and I get rather lonely. With all my training and auditing experience I see through people immediately. I see their reactive minds at work and I know what they're going to say ages before they get it out of their mouths. I have almost no one with whom I can discuss the Sublimities of Beingness and the Beauty of Esthetic Vibrations."

I felt a little sorry for him, and also wondered if this was the kind of enlightenment I was seeking. "Don't worry, Gerald," I said. "When I come back from England a Clear we'll have a ball together."

My decision probably surfaced in such a conversation with Gerald and/or Felicia. Inner events leading up to it remain hazy. Somehow over that winter of 1967-8 I came to disassociate clearing from the odious aspects of Scientology and envisage it as the portal to a new life.

At some point after Gerald's review sessions I had started cogniting on my own. I knew then that I could create my own gains and transcend auditing. This realization brought a momentous, freeing, "eureka" feeling. Scientology was now in proper perspective as a middle chapter in my life. Gerald had been an ideal guide for a time, the catalyst for my ever-expanding thoughts. Now I was ready to come into my own and fulfill my vision of the future -- as soon as I was free from the reactive mind.

Hubbard had made an apt analogy: A person with a reactive mind was like a calculating machine with a stuck key that fouled every operation. I was still crippled by that "bug" in my mental machinery, still affected by things around me, like a piece of lint blown about on a windowsill. Cleared, I would enjoy the full power of my own postulates, a resurgence of my true abilities, and success at schemes both long-frustrated and yet-to-be-conceived.

I had no fear that clearing would erase anything I wished to keep. I wasn't so sure that Scientology itself -- even Felicia's and Gerald's saner, milder version -- would not be erased by the process! Through one of life's ironic twists, clearing might prove to be the "final fix." No longer needing Scientology, I might choose to be done with it for good.

Life on the Outside

Lack of funds was not in fact what made me postpone my trip to England. I had invested in a stock which a broker advised me would soon double or triple in value. Just after I bought it, however, he said it might not make its move until summer, but then it would increase to eight- or nine-fold. I decided to hold on to it. After the Money Process I felt omnipotent in the world of finance. I considered getting a bank loan, or selling some other shares, most of which I'd bought on margin, to finance the trip, but finally arranged to leave my investments intact by cleaning out my bank account. A ballet company offered me an orchestra position on a tour of Japan. I turned down the job and, way in advance, booked flight to London for early May, 1968.

During the weeks before departure I approached still more people about auditing. Those in therapy couldn't be persuaded to try something else, and none of my Dianetic Releases ever returned to the franchise. One of the Releases had as his "ruin" homosexuality; he wanted to be "straight." I tried to convince him that with more processing he might make the conversion. Gerald had informed me that such results were quite possible. Conversely, certain cases became homosexual after processing. It was an individual matter, Up To One's Own Certainty.

"Your sexuality is only an apparency," I told my friend. "Read Hubbard's `Fundamentals of Thought.' He talks about `apparencies,' conditions that only appear to be true. For example, Hubbard shows that even destruction is part of creation, and `destruction' as most people use the word is only an `apparency.'"

This was one of the few passages that stuck in my mind. Periodically I took a crack at Hubbard's books. I liked the metaphysical tone of certain sections. However, each time I thought I was getting a glimmer, Hubbard shifted into unfamiliar terminology or auditing and E-meter technicalities. I remember thinking that when I was a Clear I would be able to understand Hubbard's writings and share in the intellectual banquet. Perhaps I wished to compare Hubbard's ideas with the philosophies that had attracted me in the past. If so, I didn't have enough of a handle on Hubbard to make such comparison. And I had also forgotten the message of books I had once admired.

One of Hubbard's books contained some terms that struck me as especially odd: ridges, pressors, tractor-beams, implosions. There was a reference to the Fifth Invader Force. I leafed through the entire book but found no explanation or further mention of it.

Some people I approached about Scientology were outspokenly skeptical. I couldn't bring myself to call them "suppressive." For instance, Vreymooth Manteag, who was in The Work, a consciousness-raising group started many decades ago by the mystic George Gurdjieff. He told me a story to demonstrate the absurdity of Scientology:

"Last winter a few of us from The Work went to a Scientologist's apartment to find out what they were raving about. We asked very direct questions, and our hostess and her friends were quite evasive. They bragged about their `gains' but couldn't really explain how they'd gotten them. Our hostess claimed that processing had `erased' all her anger -- she never got mad anymore! At that point, one of our group, Hepzibah Colloran, who has the upper-body build of a ditch-digger, stepped quickly across the room and stunned her with a left hook to the face.

"`Are you mad now?' she screamed. The hostess was blinking and the side of her face was red. `Yes, I'm mad, but only because I choose the emotion appropriate to the situation. At this moment I'm Postulating anger!'"

Alan Ottoman, a close friend who had refused Dianetic auditing, was very critical. He was being psychoanalyzed, which I more than once told him was a complete waste of his time and money.

"I'd like you to just explain how you work all these miracles," he said. "Frankly, I don't understand anything you've said about it."

"There are some things you just have to experience," I said. "Processing rids you of the horrifying incidents in your past lives that are causing your confusion."

"I don't believe in past lives."

"That's a dead giveaway. There's something back there you don't want to confront. There are killer engrams on your Time Track that twenty years with Freud himself wouldn't erase."

"Nothing is ever erased, unless you do a lobotomy."

"That's what the psychiatrists want you to think -- and they love lobotomies. Auditing can change your life in a few hours. Alan, you think you have to analyze everything. You go to your shrink and thrash around on the couch. When the fifty minutes are up nothing's been resolved. He leaves you dangling, and you go home and wallow in your problems some more until the next visit. The reactive mind is like a box of cables" -- here I went to one of Gerald's favorite routines -- "the shrink only restimulates your reactive mind, he pulls out these wires, they're all around you!" -- I flailed my arms like some unfortunate wrapped in the coils of a giant anaconda. "The thing is, Alan, you don't really want to change."

It wasn't that I didn't understand people like Alan and Vreymooth. I too had once debated with myself about life. And scoffed at Scientology.

Gerald got permission from the Hill to straighten out Renzo's Power Process. The review didn't lift Renzo's spirits. I attempted to "salvage" Renzo one Saturday afternoon as we walked half the length of Manhattan, by lecturing him on treating life, and Scientology, as a game. This only made him criticize Felicia and Gerald in further detail. Gerald was a consummate phoney masking his greed with oily flattery, and affecting an English accent when his parents had come from Eastern Europe and raised him in Dublin, Ireland. Gerald chain-smoked, stuffed himself at the table and knew nothing about art and philosophy. Worst of all, Gerald introduced himself to guests as "Dr. Tyber," which sounded like a Ph.D. but was merely the "Dr. of Scientology" Gerald had obtained at Saint Hill. Gerald had become Felicia's father figure. After clearing, Felicia was deeper in fantasy than before, and scared of the real world. She rarely left the penthouse.

I defended them as best I could. Except for Felicia, Gerald was alone; he needed and wanted friends. Teaching, auditing and promoting Scientology for years, he had developed stilted mannerisms. Behind this veneer he was a warm, genuine human being who had probably helped me more than anyone else ever had.

I knew Renzo hadn't told me everything concerning Felicia. As he would have it, she had wrecked their marriage. But he must have been guilty too. He was concealing his overts, the wrongdoings he had committed against his wife. His fault-finding reminded me of the protagonist in Gerald's sketch who came home late at night and kicked the dog. Renzo needed a strong Reality-Factor on his marriage; he needed to Take Some Responsibility for it.

I prodded him for his hidden overt, asked him point blank, "What have you done?" He squirmed. I knew I was on the right track, but to the end he would not admit his part in the breakup. It was still all Felicia's fault.

In retrospect, I've wondered how Renzo and I were able to stay friends through all this.

That spring (1968) I lived in a golden haze. I took no music jobs, rarely played the piano, read very little, had almost no physical exercise. The burden of mental life -- analyzing, second-guessing myself, what Ron Hubbard called "figure-figure" -- had been lifted, and I saw clearly that the compulsion to think and delve stemmed from the reactive mind.

One of the few things I remember doing in the world outside Scientology was to send a tape of a piece I had played in Town Hall to a concert manager. "Your playing is good enough," he said when we met, "but what makes you think you have a right to perform? You haven't studied with anyone in years and you've got only this one review to show for yourself. You haven't earned a career."

I quelled an urge to tell him off.

Weeks later, watching a sunset over the Hudson River from my furnished room, I thought of other times I had squelched my anger. I would write to the manager -- a nice letter, not a nasty one, would be the best way to get it out of my system. As the walls of my room took on the color of gold, then pink, I wrote:

"Though ostensibly we don't agree, I feel that we can communicate with each other. I know we are both doing the best we can and making progress in our own separate ways ..."

I worked on the message, writing and rewriting it, until the sky turned dark. It didn't quite satisfy me. Still feeling a twinge of animosity for the man, I slowly tore the letter to bits and threw it in the wastepaper basket.

A few days later, I started jotting notes for a book on teaching and learning to play the piano. Hubbard's ideas, such as ARC and the Tone Scale, influenced me strongly; also, his disdain for other people's methods. I planned to dedicate the book to Ron and send it to him for his approval.

I had dinner with Five Brooks, a musician I had met on a traveling job. He had recently joined the New York Org, and was scrimping to save up the money to go to England at some distant future date. Five had gone through intense emotions during his first weeks at the org, with confrontations at the Ethics Office followed by soul-searching early-morning meanderings in Central Park. His gains had a way of evaporating, and there had been a suppressive to disconnect from. He had finally completed his Lower Grades, and was now convinced that Scientology was mankind's last hope for survival.

Dinner with Five was uncomfortable. His TRs were in every second, even with the Chinese waiter. He kept his eyes glued to mine as we talked. I had difficulty eating my food and slopped sweet-and-sour sauce on the tablecloth. Five acked (acknowledged) and validated my every word with relentless zeal and expected my complete reciprocation. If he didn't get my ack in turn, he would say, "Okay?" or "Do I have your Agreement on that?" while staring into my eyes over an unwavering jack-o'-lantern grin that made him seem frightened. I was relieved when we said goodbye and went off in opposite directions.

Five verified something I already knew: that I was worlds apart from the org members, who had to take dogma as gospel and bow to authority, when I could do things my own way -- like Gerald.

An Evening at the Franchise

Done, a thetan can do anything a stage musician can do in the way of moving objects around.

L. RON HUBBARD

On my last visit to the franchise, we talked late into the night, growing more expansive by the hour. Gerald wanted me to work with him when I returned from England. The opportunities seemed endless. We would set up franchises in Switzerland or on the Mediterranean, or both, and buy land on a Greek island, where we would establish an International Cultural Center. However, we would have to find a better way to present our product than as "Scientology"; we all agreed that "Scientology" was a silly name for anything. We would still have to send ten percent of our take to the Hill if we continued to use Hubbard's material. I asked Gerald what became of all the money sent to the Hill from franchises and orgs. He replied that it was used for Hubbard's research and voluminous mailings, mostly advertisements. Presumably, anything remaining went to Hubbard's private account.

Hubbard stayed on a large yacht -- its location at any given time "somewhere on the Mediterranean" -- one of several vessels that made up the Scientology fleet, and headquarters for the Sea Org, an elite security force whose "crew" was sent on "missions" around the globe to police the various orgs. Aboard his Sea Org yacht, Hubbard was currently at work on Operating Thetan Levels VII and VIII, the culmination of processing, advertised as "Total Freedom and Total Power." Scientologists were very excited about these levels. Upon their completion no ability would be unattainable, even the power to create matter.

We speculated about the spiritual meaning of the Upper Levels. I had never considered "total power" a spiritual goal; Gerald said he never had either. Felicia surmised that Ron Hubbard had a personal hangup on "power," never cleaned up on his own case, which was causing his delay in making the final levels available.

"He's an egomaniac, isn't he?" I asked.

Gerald's face puckered good-naturedly. "I agree with you, sire. But in view of what he's done for the world we can allow him that. I've had a few beers with him and he's actually a very nice guy. In any case, your highness, you'll be an enlightened man when you come back to us. You won't forget your old friends when you're clear, will you? A Clear remembers everything, you know."

"Will I remember how I fell into my unenlightened state?"

"You'll be enlightened -- what more do you want to know? Another thing: Before I was processed I wore eyeglasses an inch thick. On Grade IV I started getting weaker prescriptions and wound up throwing all my bloody specs away. Now I can spot meter reads in the dark and I've been checked out at better than 20/20."

"I had the same experience," Felicia added. "The optometrists in East Grinstead love being near Saint Hill because so many people come in for weaker lenses."

They warned me that Saint Hill was even more of a menagerie than the New York Org. Gerald himself had been involved in bizarre happenings. His wife had declared him suppressive because he was constipated for several days -- illness or irregularity being an invalidation of Scientology -- and her boyfriend had slugged him one evening as he entered his own house. Then, as a penalty, the organization had held him prisoner in the basement of The Castle, a small tower to which Hubbard had connected some training shanties to get around local building restrictions.

"It's really wild over there," Gerald said. "Take a look at this letter I just got. This is from one of my best friends, mind you: `I want you to raise those stats immediately' -- statistics means everything to them -- 'and send me a full report on your operation. If you don't comply you will be declared again.' They really love to throw their weight around."

Gerald particularly warned me not to let anyone talk me into going on staff at the Hill. The organization was, after all, merely Ron's expedient to get his methods into quick effect world-wide. I would best go to England and capture the Golden Fleece without getting involved with this crazy organization. I would have to be rather careful what I said over there. It might be a tough siege, but the prize was worth it. All I had to do was play their game for a while.

Having given me his version of the faults, frailties and absurdities of the organization at Saint Hill, Gerald cautioned that I must "talk myself out of it" afterwards. I duly made an entry in my date book for the following September: "Talk yourself out of it."

Scientology Cognition

Things are as you consider they are.

L. RON HUBBARD

When I left the penthouse that night I felt euphoric. Broadway stretched ahead of me like a wide pathway to a shining friendly world. Power Processing, or certainly clearing, would rid me of my eyeglasses, lack of direction in life and less-than-optimal sex patterns. Anticipation of the forthcoming adventure was almost enough reason in itself for living. The very word "clear" had a dry, rarified quality. During the process my last remaining considerations would be erased and replaced by Postulates; and having "blown my mind on the clearing course," as the Saint Hill advertisements phrased it, I would return to New York free to do all the things I'd thought about doing for years.

Projects bubbled into my mind like spring-water. I would launch a concert career. I would get rich; with the money my investments would bring in, by next winter I would be in position to indulge freely in stock-market speculation, which -- in conjunction with a system for playing the horses -- was going to raise my assets to six figures.

I would also become an auditor. A traveling auditor. I would take the Special Briefing Course, auditor's training, and then spend a week in London auditing a couple I knew to release on the Lower Grades. Back in the States I would audit friends in several cities. The world-at-large, the multitude of souls that had never been audited -- what Hubbard called raw meat -- was waiting for me. Auditing them would fulfill my desire to help and instruct people, lead them to the truth. I would be an authority. As an Upper Level Scientologist, I would win more recognition in one month than I had gotten as a musician in ten years. A Clear or an OT was almost god-like. There was the danger of using this new power to lord it over other Scientologists. I would have to steer a course between the two extremes of status-superiority and false modesty -- not an unpleasant prospect. Several times lately I had caught myself imitating Gerald's repetitious courtesies and flattery. I realized what I was doing, but it made people feel good and it was for an altruistic purpose. Besides, it worked well. Altruism and opportunism needn't be in conflict. I could play it both ways.

Scientology would be the means to my liberation because it was quick and easy. I would get what I wanted out of it, using it for my own purposes as Gerald used it for his.

In a sense I was using Gerald also. Gratifying as it was that he wanted me to work at the franchise, be another partner, as it were, I intended to go along with him only if there were enough money in it and time to do other things. And I had never mentioned to Gerald that I might leave Scientology someday.

I was well aware, too, that I was being used. With my new credentials and old acquaintances, I would bring a lot of business to the franchise, perhaps draw preclears away from the New York Org. I fit into Gerald's and Felicia's plans nicely.

We were fairly matched. Using people was only immoral if the using were weighted to one side, not if all parties concerned acted in balance and without harming each other. There was such a thing as "enlightened selfishness." It was like a game.

With these thoughts I felt I had penetrated to the essence of Scientology and found there my own vision of the truth. In a flash of illumination I recognized as Scientology Cognition, I saw the full beauty of it: One created one's own truth -- with a little help from Ron.

My father came to New York to visit me. I hadn't seen much of him for the last dozen years. With five Grades of auditing behind me, I welcomed this chance to communicate with him fully perhaps for the first time. I was also worried. A Scientologist was supposed to disconnect from a parent who didn't approve of Scientology. As we were getting ready to go out to dinner, I told my father of my trip to England.

"I've never heard of Scientology. What is it exactly?" he asked.

Standing at the bathroom door of his hotel room, I was suddenly at a loss. The E-meter and the auditing table seemed far off somewhere, lost in the scratching of his razor and the traffic noises below.

"I can't explain the whole thing now, but it's restored my ability to communicate and face problems."

My father stopped shaving for a moment, a pained look on his face. "If you say it's helped you, I can't say anything. But haven't we always been able to communicate with each other?"

"I didn't mean it like that, Dad," I said.

Felicia, Gerald and I planned a magnificent bash to celebrate my last evening in town. Earlier in the week, I'd called the Cafe Chauveron, one of the finest restaurants in New York, and booked a feast for a party of four. The fourth was Dag Lildberg, one of my close friends and Dianetic Releases. We ate and drank to about a hundred dollars apiece, and dawdled at our table for several hours in near-stuporous satiation.

Felicia told us a Scientology story. There was once a man known as "the auditor's poison" who traveled around the country receiving auditing at the various orgs but never reporting any gains. He was well-to-do and spent a lot of time at this pursuit, getting nasty kicks from foiling his auditors. Finally he turned up at the New York Org, leaving a trail of disgruntled auditors behind him, and was given to the org's case-cracker. After several days of difficult sessions, the auditor spotted a floating needle, stood up at the table, extended his hand and said, "Congratulations! You are now a Grade 0 Communications Release. You have the ability to talk to anyone about anything at any time."

Whereupon the man looked up at him and said, "Go fuck yourself!"

At closing time we staggered out into the night air. Gerald wanted us to go up to Harlem to dance at Small's Paradise. We started uptown in a cab. I told Gerald I would be getting out on the West Side to try to pick up a woman -- that was how I wanted to end my last evening in New York. The whole ride he exhorted me to come with them. I almost gave in to him, but at two a.m., somewhere on upper Broadway, I said goodbye and got out of the cab.

I saw a young lady looking at a menu in a restaurant window on the corner of 92nd Street. I said to her, "The food here is very good, but the place doesn't open until noon." She smiled. I asked her to come home with me, and she did. She was not a hooker and her easy acceptance surprised me. Then I remembered that I was a Communications Release. As she was leaving my room several hours later I told her I would write her from England with information on the Lower Grades and the franchise address.

By late-afternoon I was still wide-eyed and alert, transported in the electric drunkenness induced by the multi-course meal, the wines and cognac, and the surprise affair. I called Dag Lildberg from the airport. The warm ambience of the previous evening had ended in his suspicions of Gerald. "Look how he tried to get you to come with us uptown," Dag said. "He wouldn't stop trying to persuade you -- he didn't even hear anything you said. Gerald's a manipulator. He's only interested in getting others to do his bidding."

I felt it was a bit late for me to pay any mind to other people's considerations.

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