The Road to Xenu
A narrative account of life in Scientology

by Margery Wakefield

Note: "Margery" is a fictionalized character
whose story combines Wakefield's own experiences with those of other Scientologists.
Testimony is her factual autobiography.

 Table of Contents
 

   Implant Stations in the Sky
 

   Your Needle is Floating!
 

   For the Next Endless Trillions of Years
 

   Flunk for Laughing! Start!
 

   Do Fish Swim? Do Birds Fly?
 

     On a Clear Night You Can See Forever
 

  
    The Date of the Incident is 520 B.C.
 

   Star Trek for Real
 

   Death on the Titanic
 

   Find Out Who You Really Are
 

   Welcome to the RPF
 

     Have You Ever Enslaved a Population?
 

    We Are All Many
 

    Back in the Wog World
 

    Epilogue: Blood on the Bedroom Wall
 

Bob Penny, one of the founders of FACTNet (Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network), gives this account of how Margery Wakefield's book was originally published in a dual edition with his book, Social Control in Scientology :

Margery wrote the first part of the book (The Road to Xenu), and I wrote the second part (Social Control in Scientology). We decided that the two parts complemented each other, so we published them together in one volume which we first released at the 1991 Cult Awareness Network conference in Oklahoma City. The printing was done in response to demand at the nearest Kinko's or other quick printer. The volumes were bound in a thermal binding machine of mine. Both Margery's work and mine were released to the public domain in 1993, when they were offered for download on the (non-internet) FACTNet BBS. Neither are on file with the Library of Congress unless someone else put them there. The text has been available (with no remuneration to either Margery or me) on the FACTNet BBS and on countless Web and ftp sites for I know not how long.

Chapter 1

Implant Stations in the Sky

Julie introduces her to the new science. Why she succumbed.

It was a sunny, crisp day in late October as I slowly walked home to my little apartment on East Ann Street. The sky was a bright and endless blue, and little gusts of breeze stirred the leaves on the sidewalk into small whirlwinds. Fall was my favorite season. I liked the nippy bite of the air that made you want to walk faster and brought the blood to your skin and hinted of the frostier winter air to come.

As I entered the apartment, I looked around in satisfaction. I had only been in this apartment two weeks. The apartment had been decorated on my meager student budget, but I hadn't done badly at all, I thought, as I looked around me. With two small cans of paint I had transformed a few old boards into a bookshelf, using some old bricks I had found in the back yard. And an Indian print bedspread from the flea market covered the old worn sofa. Another Indian print fabric served as a tablecloth for the small table against the wall.

Anything Indian was "in" these days with the most "hip" students, the ones I worked with at the coffee house, like my friend Bob who painstakingly taught me to do horoscopes. I had spent my whole paycheck last month buying all the books and tables I needed to cast my charts. And like Tom, a philosophy major who had introduced me to books by Edgar Cayce on reincarnation and past lives.

And my friend Julie, whose brash, cynical personality contrasted sharply with my own shyness. Julie seemed to know everything about the world. Her parents were wealthy, and Julie had always had the best of everything: the best clothes, school in Europe, the most expensive summer camps, even a car. Being accepted by Julie meant you were "in."

I knew Julie because I had been assigned as her accompanist at the beginning of the semester. We were both in music school; she played the cello and I accompanied her on the piano. We had been busy preparing for the recital earlier today in which she played the Lalo Cello Concerto.

Everything had gone fine. Afterwards, as she packed up her cello, she asked me to meet her for dinner at the Chinese restaurant on State Street. "Sure," I agreed, honored by the attention of someone as popular as Julie.

Then, mysteriously, she added, "I have something important to tell you."

"Like what?" I asked curiously, but at that moment her teacher interrupted, wanting to talk to her about her performance.

"Later," she said with a small wave, dismissing me.

Now, relaxing on my sofa, I looked at my watch. Plenty of time to make it to the restaurant. I quickly changed into a wool skirt with a turtleneck sweater and an Indian top to wear over it. And of course, my appleseed necklace that I wore everywhere.

When I reached the restaurant, Julie was waiting. We found a small table against the wall.

"So what's the big secret?" I teased her, after we had ordered.

"Well," she said, "I want to tell you about something really important. This is the biggest thing that's ever happened to me. I have just made the most incredible discovery."

"Well, what is it?" I asked her.

"You remember the week I went to California to visit my brother? About a month ago? When I didn't get back on time for Monday classes?"

"Yeah," I replied, "and you sure have been acting different since you got back. You're never around the dorm any more. Everyone's been asking what happened to you."

"You won't believe this when I tell you about it. It's just too unbelievable."

"Well, tell me." I was starting to feel impatient.

"Margery, you just have to find out about Scientology," she said intensely. "It's the most important discovery of the century."

"You're kidding," I looked at her incredulously. "That's the weird lecture we went to. Where they had that little machine they hooked you up to. They asked if anyone wanted to try it. We laughed all the way home," I said remembering the night several weeks before when a group of us had gone to a free lecture on campus about Scientology.

We heard a lecture, something about the mind, and then the lecturer gave us a demonstration of a "meter" that was supposed to be able to read your mind. I didn't remember much of what was actually said at the lecture. I just remember how we all laughed as we walked home, mimicking the lecturer with his little brown box.

"Margery, listen," Julie insisted. "This is serious. This is too important to joke about."

"But you went to the lecture. It was silly. Being able to see into your mind with that little machine."

"I know," Julie said softly. "I thought it was silly too. But I went back the next day because they said they had a free personality test, and I thought it would be interesting to take it. They took me to a house they all live in, and I saw a movie about Scientology, and it explained about how this is a brand new science of the mind, and how they could handle problems that no one else ever could before. Margery, I really think you should find out about this," she looked at me seriously.

"Like what kind of problems?" I asked a little uneasily.

"Look, this is a brand new science. They have a whole new theory about the mind. This is a thousand years more advanced than psychiatry. They really understand the mind like no one has ever done before. They can get rid of all sorts of things. Like headaches. And asthma, or colds. Anything. Even cancer. And it's 100% guaranteed. If it doesn't work, then you get your money back."

"I wonder if it could help me with my anxiety attacks?" I wondered out loud. I didn't know how much Julie knew about my problems.

"Sure. This is a science of the mind. If you really understand how the mind works, then you can cure anything that is psychosomatic, right? The only reason that psychiatry can't cure you is that they don't know how the mind works. If they did, then they could cure you. But they don't. And Scientology does."

I was quiet. No one at the dorm and none of my friends at the restaurant knew the extent of my problems. Last year, my boyfriend had died in a freak car accident. I had been in too much shock to really cry at the time. I just couldn't believe that he was gone.

But shortly after his accident, I had started to have anxiety attacks in the middle of the night. I would wake up covered with sweat, and terrified. I could never remember dreaming anything just before I woke up. But I would wake up in a panic, sometimes frozen and unable to move. This had been happening at least once a week. I was scared that I was going crazy. In between these attacks, I would feel normal, although I felt a general uneasiness about something I couldn't identify.

I had woken up screaming in the dorm one night, and Julie was one of the girls who had appeared at my door, wanting to know what had happened. I was embarrassed, and just told them I had a bad dream.

But the second time it happened, the dorm mother insisted that I go see the school counselor. I had to go once a week to see this lady, who I thought was kind of strange. She would just sit there and not say anything. I didn't like going to see her but I didn't want the embarrassment of any more screaming episodes either.

And this year, other things had started to happen. Sometimes I would be walking to class, or to the music school to practice, and suddenly I would feel vaguely terrified, like something terrible was going to happen. This feeling would usually last for a couple of hours, then it would go away. But I felt uneasy. Something was not right. I was afraid of something, and I didn't know what it was.

"Do you really think that Scientology could help me?" I looked at Julie cautiously.

"I think that if it is a problem in your mind, then Scientology can take care of it," she answered. "Anyway, what have you got to lose? There's no risk. If it doesn't work, then you can go back to your counselor. But yes, I think it can really help you."

"So how do you do it?" I asked. "I mean if I just wanted to try a little of it?"

"Well, first I would have to take you over to the center to get permission to audit you," she started to answer.

"To what?"

"Oh, to `audit' you. That's their word for what they do. It's like counseling but it's called auditing. Audit. Because it has to do with listening."

"Oh. OK, I guess. So how does it work?"

"Well, once I get permission to audit you, then we'll just go to your apartment and I will audit you. When I was in California I took a course, and I am now an auditor," she said importantly. "I learned more in that course than I have in two whole years of college."

"Do I have to be hooked up to that machine?"

"Oh, yeah. That's the E-meter."

"E-meter? What's that?" I asked.

"The E-meter. It's short for electro-psychometer. You hold onto the cans that are attached to it, and your thoughts register on the dial of the meter. I'll show you exactly how it works tomorrow. You'll see. It really works." We finished eating our dinner, paid the check, and Julie walked me home. She came in, and we sat in the living room until 3:00 AM talking about Scientology.

Julie told me that Scientology had been founded by an engineer named L. Ron Hubbard, that he had unravelled the secrets of the mind, that he was a wonderful person who just wanted to help mankind.

She said that the central part of the organization of Scientology was called the "Sea Org," short for "Sea Organization," and that this was a group of mostly young people who lived on a fleet of ships in the Mediterranean with Hubbard, helping him to get Scientology centers started all over the world. The motto of the Sea Org is "We Come Back." This, Julie explained, is because Hubbard and the Sea Org had come to earth thousands of years ago to "salvage the planet," and at that time they had failed to complete their mission. So now they were back to finish what they had started, to help save this planet from disaster.

Julie explained that through auditing, everyone on earth could be "cleared" of their "reactive" minds, the destructive part of the mind that was responsible for all the suffering on earth: for sickness, insanity, war, for all of our negative experiences.

If people could get rid of their reactive minds, Julie said, then there would never be anymore sickness. No one would ever get depressed again. And everyone would get along. There would be no more fighting. No more wars. And it was Scientology that had made this impossible dream possible for the first time in history.

"If you really want to help other people," Julie looked at me carefully, "then you need to find out more about Scientology. As an auditor you will really be able to help people with their problems. You will see miracles right before your eyes. I know, because I have seen them."

"What kind of miracles?" I wanted to know.

"Well, things like fevers going away, colds going away, people being able to take off their glasses and throw them away. I've heard stories in California that some people with withered limbs actually had them grow back right in the auditing session."

"There is nothing on this planet as advanced as Scientology," she continued. "This is the beginning of something really incredible."

Julie talked on about the people she had met in Los Angeles, about how powerful they were. Some of them, she said, even had supernatural abilities to do different things. Some of them, the ones who were "Clear," could travel outside their bodies at will, and could read other people's thoughts and move objects around with their thoughts. And there were levels above Clear, called the "OT levels," where even more incredible things were possible.

"OT levels? What are they?"

"The OT levels are the levels above Clear." She explained that "OT" stood for the words, "operating thetan," "thetan" being the Scientology equivalent of the soul.

"There are eight levels above Clear, and on these levels you learn the secrets of this universe. You learn the history of this universe for millions of years in the past, and you also learn all about your own past, your hundreds of lives before this one. You learn to remember all of them."

Talking about past lives didn't bother me, because I had been reading Edgar Cayce books, so I was familiar with the idea of reincarnation. I could accept the idea of past lives because many of my friends believed in them. Many of the people who worked at the coffee house were into Cayce and past lives, and it seemed to make sense to me. Maybe that was why I had so much talent at the piano, I suggested to Julie. Maybe I did it in a past life.

She agreed, "That's why playing the piano is so easy for you. What you're really doing is just remembering it from some other life."

"Maybe I knew Beethoven," I laughed.

"Who knows," she answered. "Maybe you were Beethoven."

Julie said that we all had hundreds of past lives, going all the way back to the old space civilizations of the past history that wasn't even recorded on this planet, but that you could remember through auditing. "I will tell you a secret," she said. "And this is something I'm not even supposed to tell you at this level. But this planet is really a prison planet. Everyone here has been sent here from another planet a long time in the past. Everyone here is either a criminal or a rebel or revolutionary from somewhere else. That's why this planet is so screwed up."

"But if all this stuff happened to us, why can't we remember it?" I asked.

"Because of the implants," she answered. "See, when people were sentenced to come to earth, it was like being sent into eternal oblivion. It was the worst sentence you could get. Because of implants. A long time ago, the implant stations were set up to keep us captive on earth, to keep us from ever leaving.

"These implant stations are white buildings out in space. When you finish a life here on earth, you leave your body, but you are subconsciously programmed to return to the implant station. In the implant station your memory of the life you just lived is electronically erased with machines which emit high powered electronic beams, then you are programmed to go back to earth for another life. But you will always keep going back to the implant station, life after life. We have been doing this for millions of years."

"So what's different about now?"

"Now there is Scientology. Hubbard is the first person in all these millions of years to have figured it all out. In Scientology for the first time, you can get rid of your return commands so you don't ever have to go back to one of the implant stations. Then you will be free to go wherever you choose."

"Where would you go?" I was beginning to get dizzy with all this strange information.

"Well, to another planet, or to another galaxy. There's hundreds and thousands of other worlds out there. There's no limit to what you can do. There's so much to see. It's exciting. And once you learn to `exteriorize,' then you can go wherever you want."

"What's `exteriorize?'" I had to ask.

"That's when you can leave your body whenever you want to and you can travel anywhere in the universe. You just think of someplace and you are there, instantly. And you can see and hear everything you can do in your body, only better."

I was getting tired, so Julie got up and walked toward the door. "I'll see you tommorow about 1:00," she promised, "for your first auditing session. See you then."

"Tomorrow," I agreed. "Thanks for the dinner."

It was hard to settle down and sleep. I had endless dreams that night about space ships and strange sceneries, bizarre dreams about white buildings up in space with electron guns just waiting to pin me to the wall....

This was my introduction to Scientology. Why did I believe such bizarre stories? Why was I so gullible? Why did no small voice inside me warn about possible danger?

There is no simple answer to this question. Part of the reason had to do with my chaotic and dysfunctional home. I grew up in a family where there was chronic discord. Sometimes it seemed as if my parents were too busy battling each other to notice me. I grew up feeling abandoned and alone. I learned to take care of myself, then later to help take care of my two brothers and baby sister. But there was never a solid foundation to my world. Part of the answer has to do with the fact that I didn't have a strong religious background. I did go occasionally to Sunday school, but that was usually a fairly unexciting experience which I discontinued as soon as I was "on my own."

Part of the reason is that I was an adolescent, and like most adolescents I felt like I knew everything there was to know about life, while actually knowing very little. I was naive. I expected adults to be wise and to know the answers. And I expected that I could trust them. So when Julie told me that this man had discovered some new science, I did not question what she said. I had been conditioned for seventeen years by my family and by the educational system not to question adults. If they said they knew the answers, then they did.

Part of the reason is that I was vulnerable at this time. I was suffering from a form of mental illness which had been terrifying for me, the symptoms strange and frightening. The possibility of finding an answer to this and an end to the suffering was the real bait which caused me to "bite." Once Julie had promised me that Scientology could give me relief, I was hooked. And part of the answer has to do with the fact that I was never warned. The word "cult" was not in my vocabulary. No one had ever told me to beware of strange people with strange stories, free meals, or impossible promises. I walked into the trap full of trust and hope, never suspecting that a noose was slowly being drawn tightly around my mind, trapping me unknowingly and unquestioningly in one of the most dangerous cults ever to exist.
 

Chapter 2

Your Needle Is Floating!

First auditing session. Local org. Strange euphoria: "keyed out Clear".

The next day I woke up wondering whether the events of the previous night had been real or just part of a bizarre and elaborate dream. My answer came in the early afternoon when Julie arrived with her E-meter in hand.

The meter was a rectangular box, a little bigger than a cigar box, with two hinges on the sides securing a removable top.

We pulled my small table into the center of the room and Julie proceeded to "set up" the E-meter.

She removed the top of the E-meter, using the side hinges to attach it to the back of the meter where it became a prop to keep the meter at an upright slant, facing her. On the face of the meter was a large dial under a plastic case with a thin needle resting at the left side of the dial. During the "session," Julie told me, I would sit opposite her at the table, from where I would be unable to see the face of the meter.

Only the "auditor" is allowed to see the needle "reads" that would indicate which part of my mind to explore, Julie explained.

But first she wanted to give me a demonstration of the meter. As I stood beside her, she took two small juice cans from her purse and connected them to the leads attached to the meter, and told me to hold onto the cans. Then she switched the power knob on. As she turned another knob, I saw the needle float lazily to the middle of the dial, then to the far side of the dial and then back again to the left side.

"Your needle is floating," Julie informed me.

"What does that mean?" I asked, watching the lazy movement of the needle.

"Well, when the needle is just floating back and forth like this with no interrupted movements in either direction, it means that nothing in your reactive mind is currently being restimulated. Here, I'll show you. Watch the dial," she commanded.

Suddenly Julie reached over and quickly gave my arm a sharp pinch.

"Ouch!" I cried. I wasn't expecting that.

But as she pinched me, I saw the needle suddenly veer all the way to the right side of the dial. Yet I hadn't moved.

"Now," said Julie loudly, "remember the pinch."

As I mentally focused on the pain in my arm, I saw the needle again make a smaller movement toward the right side of the dial.

"See, the needle reacts to your thought," Julie explained. "And the reason we use it in auditing is that it can `see' below your conscious awareness. When I ask you questions, the meter will give me your reactions at a subconscious level, things you may not even be aware of."

"So this machine can help you read my mind," I laughed. "Amazing!" I remembered how ridiculous the whole idea of the E-meter had seemed at the lecture several weeks earlier, and how we had laughed about it on the way home. For some reason, it didn't seem so silly now. The way Julie was explaining it, it seemed to make sense.

"Are you ready to get started?" Julie asked, motioning me to the chair across from her. She pulled several sheets of blank white paper and some pencils out of a small portfolio she had been carrying, and set them on the table to the right of the E-meter.

"Sure. What do I do?" I could feel that adventure lay ahead, and I was eager to get started.

"Just hold the cans in your hands in your lap. Don't move them if you can help it. I am going to ask you some questions about yourself, and we'll just see what happens."

"Now," she gazed at me intently, glancing down every few moments at the meter dial, "Tell me more about your anxiety attacks."

"Well, they started about a year ago, right after Bill died. I was just walking along the street one day when I began to feel this awful feeling of terror. It seemed to start in my stomach. I just had this feeling of terror, like something terrible was going to happen. I was too scared to move. I just stood there. Finally it went away. But it's been happening more and more.... I don't know, I seem to be afraid of something, but I don't know what it is."

"OK," Julie said, "that's fine." She was writing rapidly on the paper as she spoke. "You had a read on the phrase `a feeling of terror.' So that's what we are going to run."

"Run?" Another word used in an unfamiliar way.

"Oh, that just means that we are going to use a Dianetics technique to take this feeling of terror back to its root. Once we get to the earliest time you had this feeling, and you are able to reexperience that earliest incident, then the feeling should go away and never bother you again."

"How do you know if it's the earliest incident?" I wanted to know.

"I can tell by the E-meter. The needle moves in a certain way when you have reached the earliest incident. Now, let's get started." Julie continued to adjust the knobs on the meter.

Then she looked at me and said loudly, "Locate an incident containing a feeling of terror."

"All right," I thought back. "Yesterday. Just before the recital. I started to experience fear. I had the feeling that something awful was going to happen."

"OK," Julie responded. "What was the date of the incident?"

"Yesterday," I answered.

"All right, what was the duration of the incident?"

I thought back. "It only lasted a few minutes. About fifteen minutes."

"OK. Close your eyes. Go to the beginning of the incident and scan through it to the end. Then tell me what happened."

I closed my eyes and followed her instructions. I could "see" yesterday's events very clearly in my mind.

"All right. I'm there." I described the event to her.

"Now, is the incident erasing or growing more solid?" she asked.

"It seems to be more solid," I said with my eyes still closed.

"All right. Now I'm going to ask you if there is an earlier incident containing a feeling of terror."

"Well, yes. I had that feeling last week during a class." With my eyes still closed I began to visualize the classroom.

"OK. Now move to the beginning of that incident," Julie commanded. Then she asked me the same questions about the date and duration of the "incident." Again, at her commands I could clearly visualize the classroom. The familiar feeling of terror started its spread from my stomach to the other parts of my body. I was beginning to have a familiar feeling of panic.

"Is it getting more solid?" Julie inquired softly.

"I think so. I'm starting to feel really scared."

"OK. Now think back and see if you can find the earliest time you had this feeling of terror."

With my eyes closed, I looked into the blackness, trying to follow Julie's command.

"I don't see anything," I said honestly.

"OK. Just relax and see if anything comes to your mind. It doesn't have to make sense. Just anything at all. Look for the earliest time you felt terror."

Suddenly in my mind, I saw the picture of a foot. A tiny foot. Then a hand. "Well, I see a foot. It doesn't make any sense. I just see this little foot. And a hand. And I feel scared. I don't know what's happening." I looked anxiously into the darkness, wanting to see more.

"All right. Go to the beginning of the incident and tell me when you are there."

"I'm there," I said uncertainly.

"Scan through to the end of the incident and tell me what happened."

"Well, I see this little foot and this hand and it's pulling the foot. It's holding this baby upside down and spanking it. It's a baby that's just been born. And I feel scared. Really scared. I feel like I don't know what's happening."

Julie looked at me expectantly, but in silence.

"That's me, isn't it? That was me in the picture. I was being born. And I was scared." I opened my eyes and looked across at Julie, wanting some kind of confirmation. But she just continued to look at me as if she was expecting something else. But what? I closed my eyes again.

Then I noticed that the terror inside me was subsiding, and I felt myself slipping into a state of deep relaxation. The picture started to fade away into the darkness, getting smaller and smaller. Then something unexpected started to happen. I opened my eyes and looked straight at Julie. Suddenly I started to laugh. For no reason I just started laughing as if I had just heard the world's funniest joke. The laughter seemed to come from deep inside me, and I couldn't stop it.

Julie just sat there, looking at me, with a fixed expression, unsmiling, apparently not sharing any of my mysterious mirth.

After I had sobered up, Julie continued to stare at me and then said solemnly, "I'd like to indicate that your needle is floating. This is the end of the session. You can put down the cans."

"That's it? That's all there is to it? You mean my anxiety attacks are cured?"

"Well, you just have to wait and see. There might be other feelings involved. Just wait and see," Julie answered as she turned off the meter. She folded up the sheets of paper and started packing everything away. "Now I want to take you over to the center. Come on. You have to see the Examiner." We drove to an older house not far from the university. I still had a lingering feeling of elation from the mysterious session.

As we walked in the house, I was directed to a small room off to the right. A sign over the door said, "Examiner." In the middle of the room was a table with an E-meter already set up in the middle of it. A young boy of about high school age was sitting at the table and he motioned for me to take the chair across from him.

"Pick up the cans," he commanded as he looked at the meter and adjusted the knobs. Then he looked across at me and said solemnly, "Thank you. Your needle is floating. You can put down the cans." Then he smiled. "You have to come and see the Examiner after every session," he explained, seeing my obvious confusion.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, if your needle isn't floating or if the tone arm is reading too high," he said pointing to one of the larger knobs on the meter, "then you might have to go directly into a Review session. To correct what went wrong in your session. That's all. But you are fine. Your needle was floating all over the dial."

He looked at me with satisfaction. Then he got up and I went out to rejoin Julie in the hallway. The boy handed Julie a piece of paper and quickly disappeared into another room.

"Come on. I want you to meet everyone."

We walked into the living room where several people were sitting as if they were waiting for something. It reminded me of the reception area in a doctor's office.

Julie introduced me to an older woman who was seated at a desk piled high with papers.

"This is Rita," Julie said as the woman smiled at me. "She's the director of the center." Then she looked over toward several people sitting on some sofas in the center of the room. They all seemed to be about my age or a little older.

"Margery just had her first session," Julie announced triumphantly.

"Oh, wow. That's great. Congratulations," several of them came over to me and hugged me and shook my hand.

"I can tell just by looking at you that it was a success," the older woman beamed at me as she got up and took me by the hand. "Now come and I'll show you around the center. We'll have to get you signed up for the Communication Course."

"The Communication Course?" But my question was lost as she began to introduce me around. There were more hugs. I felt like an honored guest. I responded to their friendly smiles and warm congratulations. I had never seen so many apparently happy people. They could all have been on drugs, but their eyes were clear and direct, and they had a relaxed alertness that seemed to belie any drug involvement.

Julie told me that we had to get a "C/S" before she could audit me further.

She explained that someone called the Case Supervisor had to look over the notes she had taken during our session, and write down for Julie the instructions for our next session. This written page of instructions was called a "C/S."

She explained that the other people in the living room were either auditors or their "preclears" and that they were also waiting for a "C/S" before they could resume auditing.

"Look," Julie told me. "I have some work I need to do. Why don't you stop back around seven tonight and we'll see what's next? I'll meet you right by the front door."

"OK. Thanks." As I walked toward the front door, I saw a small poster hanging in the hall that had a picture of Earth done in crayons, and black lettering below that said, "What would you be doing if there were only seven days left until the end of the world?"

"Strange," I thought, but quickly dismissed it from my mind.

As I walked home, it seemed to me that everything was a bit brighter. I seemed to be unusually alert, noticing the bright, metallic colors of the cars parked along the street, and the unusual vividness of the leaves on the trees. I had smoked marijuana a few times at parties, and this seemed curiously similar to the heightened perceptions I had when "high" on grass. Everything just looked more vivid.

When I got home, I went in the bathroom and looked into the mirror. Something caught my attention. Suddenly I felt a rush of euphoria as I looked at myself in the mirror. A thought was forming somewhere deep in my mind, making its way to the surface like a bubble.

"That's not me," the thought made me simultaneously confused and elated. My mind was racing ahead as I tried to grope for some sort of mental order. "That's not me." Again I looked into the mirror, into my own eyes.

"That's my body. But it's not me. I am different. They're right. I'm not my body, I'm something else. I am different than my body." Then I felt an explosion all around me. It seemed as if the walls had just exploded all around me. I looked around. Nothing had moved. What was that explosion? This was wild!

I decided to go back to the house. I needed to talk to someone. Something was happening to me.

As I walked I noticed that the colors around me were still unusually bright. And I still had the feeling of euphoria. I was feeling like at any moment I could explode into a million tiny particles.

I walked up the steps and into the house. I found Rita talking to someone in the living room. She saw me, and quickly came over.

"What is it?" She put her hand on my arm.

"I'm not sure. I just had a very strange experience." I told her about the colors and the brightness I had observed on the way home, and then my thoughts as I looked into the mirror and the strange explosion.

"OK. You need to go in and see the Examiner again and tell him exactly what you have just told me. It's OK," she looked at me reassuringly and smiled. "Don't worry. This has happened to other people. You're just going a little faster than usual, that's all."

She didn't seem to be alarmed.

I was again seated at the table with the young boy, and I repeated what I had told Rita, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

He was writing down notes as I was talking. Then, after staring for a long time at the E-meter dial, he finally looked up at me and said with an expressionless face, "Your needle is floating. You can go and wait in the living room."

So I went and sat in a chair on the far side of the room. The other people in the room seemed to be absorbed in reading or in quiet, private conversations, so I just sat there, wondering what I was waiting for.

Half an hour later, the young boy appeared in the doorway. He held a manila folder in his hand. Then very loudly, he shouted out, "That's it! Margery has just attained the state of keyed out Clear!"

Suddenly the room came to life. At once, everyone was looking at me, and clapping. They were all smiling.

"Speech, speech!" they were shouting while the clapping turned rhythmical. "Well," I stammered, crimson from all the unexpected attention, "I feel really good. I'm not sure what has happened to me, but I feel great."

The clapping continued. Finally, Rita's voice came from the doorway. "OK, everyone. That's it. You can go back to your reading."

The clapping stopped as suddenly as it had started and everyone turned back to their activities. Julie had appeared in the room with Rita. They were both laughing as they came up to me. I must have looked very confused.

"What in the world is keyed out Clear?" I managed to ask them.

"It means," Julie replied, "it means that you have just temporarily achieved the state of Clear. Sometimes the reactive mind moves out of the way temporarily and you actually feel like you would if you were Clear. I can't believe this happened to you after just one session!"

"Margery," Rita saw that I was still confused, "the only way to really get Clear is to do all the grades in Scientology that lead up to Clear." She led me over to a large chart on the wall, printed in red. It was labelled in big red letters at the top, "The Bridge to Total Freedom." There were rows of little boxes on the chart and I quickly understood that each level on the chart represented a different level in Scientology.

"You are here," Rita pointed to the lowest level, "and Clear is here," pointing to a level halfway up the chart. "You must do all these levels in between to become a real Clear. However, because you have achieved the state of keyed out Clear, I'm afraid that you can only be audited from now on by someone who is Clear or above," she motioned to the levels at the top of the chart.

"What about Julie?" I looked toward Julie who was standing there silently.

"She's not Clear, so she can't audit you here anymore. We don't have anyone here who is Clear yet, other than myself. I'm Clear, but I'm not tech-trained, so I can't audit you either."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" I was feeling even more confused.

"I'm afraid," Rita looked at me smiling broadly, "you're going to have to go to Los Angeles to continue your auditing. You have suddenly exceeded our ability to help you."

"I can't go to Los Angeles. I'm in school. Here." I looked helplessly at both of them.

"Margery," Julie said slowly, "you will just have to make a decision. You really don't know much about Scientology yet. It goes way beyond anything you can even imagine. Look at these top levels." She pointed to a level just above Clear.

"These are the OT levels. When you get to these levels you will achieve states of mind that before this time people have only dreamed about. And if you go to L.A. you can train to become an auditor yourself. This is just the beginning of a great adventure for you. There are no limits in this game. There is no problem that auditing can't handle."

"And besides," she continued, "didn't you tell me that you wanted to help people? Well, there isn't anything you can do that will make as much of a difference as becoming an auditor. This is the most powerful stuff in the whole world, in fact, in the whole universe. Just think about it."

I was dizzy. Los Angeles? I thought about the life I had here in Ann Arbor. Somehow things weren't the same. Somehow working in the coffee house and going to classes seemed pretty dull compared with the events I had experienced in the past two days. This was an adventure. What did I have to lose? If it didn't work out I could always come back.

I made a decision. I looked up at Rita and Julie.

"OK. I'm going. I'm going to L.A."

"All right!," Julie grabbed me in a big hug. "This kid's gonna go Clear!"

"OK," said Rita. "We're going to have to make some phone calls. Let's get busy." She looked at me proudly. "You have a wonderful adventure ahead of you. I promise you, you will never be the same again."

She would never know how true those words were to be.

Chapter 3

For the Next Endless Trillions of Years

LA Celebrity Center. $500: Dianetics Course. Hello L.Ron, goodbye college.

I stared out the window as the plane dipped into the greenish-yellow smog bank blanketing the city below. Five minutes earlier the captain had announced our descent into Los Angeles.

I was thinking about the adventure that lay waiting for me in the city that was beginning to materialize below as we cleared the smoggy haze. I was also thinking of Julie's last words to me as we parted at the airport in Ann Arbor. "Remember," she had said with a smile, "the true test of a thetan is to make things go right."

The past three days had been a blur of activity. I had to formally withdraw from school, leaving behind a slate of incomplete classes. My school record read simply "Withdrew for personal reasons."

I called my mother and asked if she could come and help me pack up my things.

"I'm going to California to study Scientology," I announced.

"What's Scientology?" I could hear the suspicion in her voice.

"It's a new science of the mind," I informed her. "It's the psychology of the future. I am going to train to become an auditor. A new kind of counselor. I'll be able to really help people."

She arrived the next day, pleading with me to at least finish the semester before beginning my odyssey west.

"What kind of school is this Scientology anyway," she wanted to know. "I've never heard of it and neither has your father. Are you sure it's accredited?"

"Mom," I remonstrated, slightly annoyed that she was not willing to share my enthusiasm, "what does it matter if it's not accredited? It's new. It's light years ahead of traditional psychotherapy" (I had heard that phrase at the center). "I'm going to be able to really help people. You know that's all I ever really cared about."

Unconvinced, but seeing that I was not to be dissuaded, she helped me load my meager belongings into the back of the station wagon. "We'll just keep everything for you in the basement until you come back."

As she drove off, I looked back into the empty apartment and thought, "Well, there's no turning back now. L.A., here I come."

The wheels of the plane made contact with the runway and I was abruptly jolted back into the present. I retrieved my one small suitcase and asked directions to a bus headed into Los Angeles. Inside my purse was a slip of paper with my destination, "820 South Burlington Street. Celebrity Center," and a name, "Antonio Ferraro."

I probably looked like any other student in the late sixties, in my Indian print dress, leather sandals, and appleseed necklace. An hour and a crowded bus ride later, I stood outside a low wooden building on the corner of Burlington and Eighth Streets in downtown Los Angeles, in the MacArthur Park district.

The large sign on the building said "Welcome to Celebrity Center." A smaller sign on the door read, "A Center for Artists. Church of Scientology." I had been told that the main Scientology center, the Los Angeles "Org" (or organization) was located a few blocks away on Ninth Street, but that Celebrity Center was a special center which catered to artists and to celebrities in the motion picture business. Because of my musical abilities it had been decided to refer me here.

The front door was open. I walked in and was immediately greeted by a short, older woman with clear blue eyes and an eager smile.

"Hello, dear," she greeted me, putting her hand on my arm in a friendly gesture. "Can I help you?"

"I'm supposed to ask for Antonio. I just came from Ann Arbor." I gave her Rita's name.

"Oh, yes. We've been expecting you. I'm so glad you're here. Come. Let's find Antonio and get you started." I followed her into a large room just behind the reception area.

The room was somewhat dark and it took me several seconds to adjust to the lighting. Then I saw several long rows of tables with about a dozen people sitting, obviously absorbed in study. Some of them seemed to be working in pairs and were quietly conversing.

I was immediately struck by how quiet the room was, like a library. The only sounds were the low murmur of voices and the sound of rustling papers. A woman in a white uniform was slowly circling the tables, observing the students. She held a clipboard in her hand. As I watched, she would occasionally write something on the clipboard, then wordlessly hand a pink sheet of paper to one of the students.

At the front of the room, an older man was seated at a desk piled with manilla folders. A sign on the desk read "Registrar." The older woman, who had introduced herself as Aileen, lead me to the desk.

"This is Antonio," she smiled. "Antonio, this is Margery. She's just come from Michigan to do some training with us. I know you'll be able to get her oriented." She took my hand. "We'll talk later. The most important thing is for you to get started on course." She averted her intense gaze, and looked at Antonio with a knowing smile. He nodded, then looked at me and pointed toward a chair next to his desk.

"Welcome," he looked at me, also smiling broadly. "Welcome to Scientology, the Road to Total Freedom." It was a phrase I would hear many times in the coming years.

Antonio gestured toward the classroom. "This is our courseroom. This is where we teach the Dianetics course, and where you'll learn to become an auditor." He paused, then looked at me as if he were wondering whether or not to let me in on a secret.

"Miracles happen here every day. Miracles. You'll see."

I looked back at the room. Over to the side of the long tables were other students, in pairs, seated in chairs facing each other and staringly wordlessly into each other's eyes.

"What are they doing?" I asked Antonio.

"They're doing `TR zero.' TR stands for Training Routine. It's one of the drills on the Dianetics Course. It's a drill to improve your eye contact, and your `confront' as an auditor."

"Confront?" I was puzzled, not remembering ever having heard the word used as a noun before.

"That means the ability of the auditor to accept whatever the preclear says or does in the auditing session without any reaction from his own case," Antonio explained.

"Case?" Another new word.

"Case, yes. Case is a word we use for the preclear's reactive mind. It is also called a `bank.' When the person's reactive mind or bank is restimulated it means that he is `keyed in' or `banky.'"

I looked at him and laughed. "Did I just land on a different planet? I feel like I'm learning a whole new language."

"That's because Scientology is different from any other subject. We use new words so that people studying our courses don't get Scientology ideas confused with ideas in other subjects, like psychology."

"What are those people doing?" I asked, pointing to a smaller table at which two people seemed to be making small figures out of clay.

"That is the clay table. In all of your courses here, you will be asked to demonstrate the concepts that you are learning in clay. You have to actually show the ideas in clay. That is to add `mass' to the `significance' of the written words. Hubbard found that people get sleepy when they read for long periods of time. When you add mass to their learning, by having them do practical drills or demonstrate things in clay, they are more alert, and can study for longer periods of time."

At another table, I noticed another student with headphones listening to a tape recording. Occasionally, the student would chuckle out loud at something he heard on the tape.

I looked back at Antonio. "This is different from any classroom I've ever seen before. It's not like school at all."

"You are in for many surprises in Scientology," Antonio beamed. "Your life will never be the same again."

"Yeah, everyone keeps saying that." I looked out again at the strange classroom. "So, Antonio, what do I have to do to get started?"

Antonio pulled out a long piece of paper printed with green ink. "This is a routing form," he said as he started to fill out the form. "We'll just get you routed onto course."

After several routine questions, he asked me how much money I had brought with me. "Five hundred dollars," I told him honestly. "Maybe a few dollars more."

"Well, that's great, because that's exactly the cost of the Dianetics Course," he looked at me happily. "You'll be able to get started right away."

"I thought the first course was the Communication Course?" (In Ann Arbor I had been told that my first course would only cost fifty dollars.)

"Yes, many people start with the Communication Course, but in your case, you can go directly onto the Dianetics Course. That will save you some money. And all of the materials from the Communication Course are included on the Dianetics Course, so you won't lose anything. And I can see that you have too much awareness to need the Communication Course. You are ready for Dianetics."

I accepted his explanation, but there was an obvious problem. "But what will I do about a place to stay and a job. This is all the money I have."

"That's no problem," Antonio assured me. "We will find a place next door for you to stay. Right now all you have to worry about is just being on course. Everything will be taken care of."

So I dug into my purse and handed Antonio my total savings. After I had signed the routing form in several places, Antonio led me over to the woman in the white uniform.

"This is the Course Supervisor," he informed me as he introduced me. "She will give you your course pack. And if you have any questions, she's the person to ask. We'll have time to talk again later."

With none of the smiling warmth of Antonio and Aileen, the Course Supervisor stared at me with an expressionless face. "Sit over there," she motioned me to an empty seat. "I'll get you your pack."

A minute later she handed me an two-inch thick legal sized packet which was bound and printed in red ink. "DIANETICS", with small letters at the bottom. "Copyright, L. Ron Hubbard."

The first few pages of the pack were marked "CHECKSHEET." Each item of the checksheet was numbered, and there were spaces after each item which were obviously to be initialed after each item was read. Some of the lines had a star before them, with the explanation that all starred items were to be "starrated" by another student. I would be quizzed on these items by another student who then had to initial my sheet.

As I looked through the pack, I noticed that some of the pages of the pack were printed in green ink. At the top they were marked "HCO POLICY LETTER." Further on in the pack were other sheets printed in red and marked "HCO BULLETIN." At the top of all the pages were the words "HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE, Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex."

I turned to the first page after the checksheet. It was a green page with the title "The Aims of Scientology."

"A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war," the essay began,

where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where Man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology.

First announced to an enturbulated world fifteen years ago, these aims are well within the grasp of our technology.

Non-political in nature, Scientology welcomes any individual of any creed, race or nation.

We seek no revolution. We seek only evolution to higher states of being for the individual and for Society.

We are achieving our aims.

After endless millenia of ignorance about himself, his mind and the Universe, a breakthrough has been made for Man.

Other efforts Man has made have been surpassed.

The combined truths of Fifty Thousand years of thinking men, distilled and amplified by new discoveries about Man, have made for this success.

We welcome you to Scientology. We only expect of you your help in achieving our aims and helping others. We expect you to be helped.

Scientology is the most vital movement on Earth today.

In a turbulent world, the job is not easy. But then, if it were, we wouldn't have to be doing it.

We respect Man and believe he is worthy of help. We respect you and believe you, too, can help.

Scientology does not owe its help. We have done nothing to cause us to propitiate. Had we done so, we would not now be bright enough to do what we are doing.

Man suspects all offers of help. He has often been betrayed, his confidence shattered. Too frequently he has given his trust and been betrayed. We may err, for we build a world with broken straws. But we will never betray your faith in us so long as you are one of us.

The sun never sets on Scientology.

And may a new day dawn for you, for those you love and for Man.

Our aims are simple, if great.

And we will succeed, and are succeeding at each new revolution of the Earth.

Your help is acceptable to us.

Our help is yours.

That sounds really great, I thought. I initialled my checksheet and turned the page.

Next I started to read a biography of Hubbard.

Hubbard, I read, was born in Nebraska in 1911 and was raised on his grandfather's cattle ranch in Montana. He could ride before he could walk. As a teenager he spent several years traveling in Asia, studying with Lama Priests and "other warlike people."

Later he enrolled at George Washington University, and was a member of the first course in nuclear physics. He later led an expedition into Central America to study savage cultures.

He was crippled and blinded at the end of World War II but cured himself by applying to himself his discoveries about the mind. He was twice pronounced dead, but later given a perfect bill of health.

With the publication of Dianetics, the "Modern Science of Mental Health" was established as a worldwide organization. "Scientology is the most vital movement on Earth today.... Every week thousands of new people are introduced to its great benefits."

The biography concluded, "The long sought bridge to total freedom for Mankind was complete."

Next, I read an essay in green ink titled, "My Philosophy," by L. Ron Hubbard.

"I like to help others," I read,

and count it as my greatest pleasure in life to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days....

I have lived no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who has not lived and the scholar who will not share....

There have been many wiser men than I, but few have traveled as much road....

I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it looks both ways. And I know that there is wisdom and that there is hope....

No man has any monopoly upon the wisdom of this universe. It belongs to those who can use it to help themselves and others.

If things were a little better known and understood, we would all lead happier lives.

And there is a way to know them and there is a way to freedom.

The old must give way to the new, falsehood must be exposed by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails.

The next essay was called "Safeguarding Technology." In it, Hubbard stated that,

In fifty thousand years of history on this planet alone, Man never evolved a workable system. It is doubtful if, in foreseeable history, he will ever evolve another.

Man is caught in a huge and complex labyrinth. To get out of it requires that he follow the closely taped path of Scientology.

It has taken me a third of a century in this lifetime to tape this route out....

Scientology is the only workable system Man has. It has already taken people toward higher IQ, better lives and all that. No other system has. So realize it has no competitor....

Don't let your party down. By whatever means, keep them on the route. And they'll be free. If you don't, they won't.

In my mind, I could almost hear a band playing. Patriotism I never knew I possessed was stirring inside me. At last, I thought, after eighteen depressing years of frustration and failure, maybe I have finally found the winning team.

The next essay was even more intense. It hinted of danger.

When somebody enrolls, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universenever permit an open-minded approach. If they're going to quit let them quit fast. If they enrolled, they're aboard, and if they're aboard, they're here on the same terms as the rest of uswin or die in the attempt.

As I read on to the end of this policy letter, I came to a paragraph that I had to read twice. Did it say what I think it said?

We're not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn't cute or something to do for lack of something better.... The whole agonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depends on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.

"Wow," I thought. "Heavy." This was more than I had expected. But then, really, what had I expected?

I looked around the room at the other students who were quietly studying. I suddenly had the feeling that I had not only arrived in a different city, but in a different world.

Whatever had been important to me before, now paled in comparison with what I was discovering on these pages. I was being led into a new world, with new ideas, new words, new people, and new priorities.

In one day my priorities had shifted from the mundane unimportances of my barren life as a college student to the profound ideals I was discovering in these pages. It was almost scary. In reading Hubbard's words, I felt a challenge. Challenge to go beyond anything I had ever expected of myself, or imagined myself capable of. Here was a chance to be and do something heroic. How often, I wondered, does a person have a chance like this? A chance to make a universal difference in life.

Goodbye, old life, I thought. Somehow, after reading just these few pages, I knew I would not be returning to college any time soon.

Instead, I walked eagerly and trustingly into the world of Scientology, without so much as a backwards look. If this was the ship called Scientology, I was aboard.

Chapter 4

Flunk for Laughing! Start!

TR0 stare. Bullbaiting. Scientology will prevent nuclear war. SHSBC tapes. MUs.

Just as I was finishing the last policy letter in the first section of my checksheet, the Course Supervisor called out in a loud voice, "That's it! Afternoon break!" At once chairs were pushed back and study packs closed as everyone filed out the front door into the parking lot. There was a long square log bordering a small garden by the front door which served as a bench for the students during the break. Several students were lighting up cigarettes.

I noticed a girl about my own age sitting by herself.

"Hi," I ventured. "I'm Margery. I just started the course this afternoon."

"Hi. Welcome. I'm Kris," she reached out her hand. "So what do you think so far?"

"It's pretty wild. This is different from anything I've ever done before. I guess I'm still wondering if it's all real. Maybe I'm just having a very strange dream." I laughed as I turned up the sleeves of my dress to take advantage of the hot California sun.

"Oh, it's real all right. I wondered at the beginning too. But the auditing really works. That's what convinced me. I've had so many wins from auditing. Now I just want to get up the bridge and go OT. That's where it's at." She stared abstractedly into the distance for a few seconds. "How'd you get in, anyway?"

"A friend at school. In Michigan. Everything's happened so fast. If you had told me a week ago that I'd be dropping out of school and coming to California, I would have thought you were crazy. But here I am." I shook my head as she offered me a cigarette. "How about you? I mean, how did you get in?"

"Oh, my whole family's in. My brother got in first, then my parents. Now my parents are in the Sea Org. They're on the ship. And my brother's an auditor at the Org," she pointed vaguely in a southwesterly direction. "I would have joined the Sea Org too. It would be cool to be on the ship with Ron. But I have a small part in a film, so I can't leave right now."

"Ron?" I looked puzzled.

"Ron. Hubbard. He likes us to call him Ron. He's neat. He really cares about everyone. Wait till you listen to his tapes. He's funny. But he's a genius to have figured out how the mind works. I mean, no one else for thousands of years has been able to figure it out." She looked at me, her eyes sparkling.

"Have you ever met him?" I asked her.

"No, but I would give anything just to say hello to him one time. He pretty much stays on the ship. I am so jealous of my parents. They get to work with him every day. I could have gone on the ship, but I want to become a famous actress first. That's the best way I can help the third dynamic. By getting my acting into power."

"Third dynamic?" The question was just out of my mouth when I heard a stern, "That's it. End of break. Let's get back on course. And I want to see some stats this afternoon!" The uniformed Course Supervisor stood in the doorway looking very military. She had a red lanyard around her neck to which a whistle was attached. I waited for her to use it but she didn't. The students quickly followed her into the courseroom and took their seats. As soon as everyone was seated, the Supervisor called out, "All right. Start!" The classroom was quiet once again.

I looked at my checksheet. The next section was called "Training Drills."

According to the instructions I needed a "twin" to do the drills. I went up the Supervisor. She looked around the classroom. "OK," she said. "I think George needs to do TR's. Go have a seat and I'll get him," she pointed to the pairs of chairs in the back of the room.

A minute later, an older man approached and stretched out his hand. "Hi," he said warmly. "I'm George. I hear you need to do TR's."

"Yeah, I guess," I hesitated. "I've never done them before."

"That's OK. Let's read the bulletin," and he opened his pack to the same page I was on.

"TR 0 Confronting," I read.

Purpose: To train student to confront a preclear with auditing only or with nothing. Training Stress: Have student and coach sit facing each other, neither making any conversation or effort to be interesting. Have them sit and look at each other and say and do nothing for some hours. Student must not speak, fidget, giggle or be embarrassed....

"All right," George looked at me pleasantly. "I'll be the coach. We do this for two hours. Get comfortable."

I adjusted myself in the chair and put my hands on my lap.

"Ready?" George sat in a similar position directly across from me. Our knees were almost touching.

I nodded.

"OK, start!" George commanded.

I looked into George's eyes, wondering what was going to happen. He looked back at me with a flawless, unblinking stare. I blinked my eyes.

"Flunk for blinking! Start!" George said sternly.

"You mean I can't even blink?" I asked incredulously.

"Flunk for talking! Start!" George said, still maintaining his perfect stare into my eyes.

I tried to return the same perfect stare he was giving me. My mouth started to quiver.

"Flunk for moving your mouth. Start!" George was merciless. All right, I thought to myself. This is serious. Then I thought of something.

"George," I interrupted. "Wait a minute. If I flunk, does that mean we have to start the two hours over again?"

"That's it," he said, temporarily ending the drill. He smiled at me and said, "Right. The two hours will start over again every time I say `Start.' When you can do TR 0 flawlessly for two hours, then we are finished with the drill."

Before I could ask him anything else, he had resumed his staring and commanded, "Flunk for talking! Start!" and we were off again. I tried as hard as I could not to blink. Soon I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. My eyes were burning from the salty liquid. But I forced myself not to blink. George continued his seemingly effortless blinkless stare.

As I stared into George's eyes, I began to see an aura of colors around his head. The colors were flowing in streams around his head. Then the colors expanded into the whole room. I watched with awe as the whole room became filled with flowing colors.

Meanwhile my pain was increasing. The tears started to run down my cheeks. Inside I was crying with pain. But stubbornness competed with the pain. "If he can do it," I thought to myself determinedly, "then I can do it too." I was feeling pain in my whole body. I was suddenly conscious of the chair, and it felt painful against my body. I wanted desperately to move and to ease the pain of the chair against the pressure points of my body. This was torture. The time went on. I began to have sensations of my body being contorted out of shape. The flowing colors in the room became even more vivid. I was feeling strangely dizzy. I wondered if I was going to pass out. I was feeling light-headed, almost like I had felt once at the dentist when I had been given gas before having a tooth extracted.

How much time had gone by? I continued my stare. I wanted to look down at my watch. I wondered how were we going to know when two hours had gone by. The thought of having to sit here until the Supervisor called the dinner break was not a good thought.

The time continued to pass by. The excruciating pain at the point where my hipbones met the chair seemed to be going away, and I was beginning to feel a sense of expansiveness, as if I were expanding like a balloon into the space in the classroom.

Suddenly I had a rushing feeling of euphoria. I felt as if I was floating, looking down at everyone from a thousand points all over the room. This was better than anything I had ever experienced on marijuana.

"Far out," I thought to myself. The pain was gone. "I feel like I could sit here like this for a thousand years." I was enjoying the expansive high. The colors were gone. Instead, I saw the room with crystal clarity. I felt an unaccustomed serenity. I could just stay like this forever, I was thinking, when suddenly George reached forward and tapped my shoulder.

"That's it," he said quietly. "You have just passed TR 0."

"Wow," I said. "I don't know if I can even stand up. I feel like I have been blasted out of my head."

"Exactly," he looked at me and smiled. "Congratulations. Most people don't do that well the first time. I can see that you are going to be an excellent student."

I tried to move my head. I was still feeling like I was located at some remote point from my body, making motion difficult. I tried to stand up and stretch, but felt dizzy. I felt as if I was moving my body by remote control. George looked at his watch. "Well, we don't really have time to do any more before dinner. Why don't we continue after dinner. That will give you some time to enjoy your win from TR 0." He seemed to understand that I was still trying to get back in control of my body.

"Don't worry," he assured me. "You are probably just feeling a bit exterior. It takes a little getting used to. I'll see you here after dinner." I opened my pack, and looked at the next drill.

"TR 0 Bullbait," I read.

Purpose: To train student to confront a preclear with auditing or with nothing. The whole idea is to get the student able to BE there comfortably in a position three feet in front of the preclear without being thrown off, distracted or reacting in any way to what the preclear says or does.

Training Stress: After the student has passed TR 0 and he can just BE there comfortably, `bull baiting' can begin. Anything added to BEING THERE is sharply flunked by the coach. The coach may say anything or do anything except leave the chair. The student's `buttons' can be found and tromped on hard.

I read it over a second time but I still didn't understand what we were supposed to do. I decided to go up and ask the Supervisor.

"Excuse me," I approached her. "I don't understand this drill. Can you explain it to me?"

She looked at me with disapproval. "What word don't you understand?" she asked coldly.

"What word?" I was puzzled.

"Yes. According to the tech, if you don't understand something in the materials, then it means you have gone past a word you didn't understand. You need to find your word and look it up," and she handed me a dictionary that had been sitting on the table.

I felt confused, but decided to take her advice. I looked through the passage I had just read.

I looked at the word baited. Maybe that was it. I turned to the B's in the dictionary.

"Bait," I looked through the definitions. "3. To tease or goad, especially so as to provoke a reaction," I read. That sounds right. I read the passage again. It seemed to make a little more sense.

Just then the Supervisor called the dinner break. I went over to Antonio who was still seated at his desk.

"Well, how was course?" Antonio smiled at me. "I heard you did TR 0 like a pro. That means you'll make an excellent auditor." He didn't give me a chance to reply.

"I suppose I should show you to your accomodations." He got up from the desk and led me to the front door. We walked around the corner to a large blue house directly behind the center.

"This is our staff house," he explained as we approached the house. "You'll be staying here until we can find you permanent accomodations."

"But how am I going to pay for it?" I asked him. "And what about food. I don't have any more money."

"You can pay us back by becoming a top-notch auditor," he smiled. "You'll be eating with us in the staff dining room. Come, I'll show you." First he took me to a small room just off the hallway in the front of the house. There were three beds in the room. "I think this one is unoccupied," Antonio said, pointing to the bed just inside the door. I put my suitcase under the bed.

"Now, let's go eat." We walked back to the dining room where Aileen and six or seven other people were already eating. "Take a plate and help yourself," I was told. The food was served family style. I hadn't eaten on the plane, so was famished by this time. And I started to feel the fatigue of the long day and the unfamiliar events.

I listened to the conversation at the table. I realized that I didn't understand much of what they were saying. It really did seem like a different language. Many of the words sounded familiar, but they seemed to be using them in ways I had never heard them used before.

"This is really an upstat dinner," Aileen said. "The cook must be in power." "Yeah," one of the others, a blond haired man in a navy blue uniform with a gold braid, laughed, "after he got over his ARC break about three unexpected people for dinner." He looked at me.

"Is this a new PC?" he asked Antonio.

"Yes," Antonio replied, introducing me. "This is Margery. She's just been selected here. Julie is her FSM. Her stats are already in affluence after her first day on course."

"Outstanding," the blond man looked at me approvingly. "We need some new blood in Tech."

I was too busy eating to ask any questions. I just tried to understand as much as I could of their unusual conversation.

After dinner, I volunteered to help with the dishes.

"No," Aileen answered, taking some plates from my hand, "you're not hatted to work in the kitchen. And we have a Kitchen I/C here to take care of everything."

"Hatted? Kitchen I/C?" I thought I would never learn all the new words.

"I'm sorry," Aileen put her arm on my shoulder. "I keep forgetting that you don't know our words yet. I guess I've just been here too long." She continued, "Every job in Scientology is called a post, and for every job, no matter how menial it is, there is a pack of materials which a person studies to learn or `be hatted' on that post. For example, Kitchen In Charge is a post, and only when a person has been hatted on that post can he take over the job."

"Anyway," she looked at her watch, "you need to be getting back on course." We walked back to the center together. I looked at the lush vegetation surrounding the house.

"I can't believe it's the end of October," I said to Aileen. "I've never seen so many beautiful flowers. At home everything is brown this time of year." I admired the bottlebrush bushes lining the sidewalk.

"I guess we take it for granted," Aileen admitted. "I am usually so busy that I don't take time to notice."

"Do you ever have time off?" I asked her.

"Well, we have personal time on Saturday morning. That's about all. But I don't mind the long hours. I feel honored to be helping Ron. We have a planet to clear, and that's a big job. And there may not be much earth time to do it in."

I remembered the poster on the wall of the house in Ann Arbor. "Why?" I asked her. "Do you think something's going to happen?"

"We are the only organization on earth that can prevent a nuclear disaster," Aileen replied. "Ron says we have about seven years to clear the planet. That's all the time we have. And if we fail, then that's it. This planet will no longer exist."

"But how can Scientology prevent a nuclear war?" I asked her.

"By getting everyone on the planet clear. When people no longer have their reactive minds, they will no longer be interested in petty disputes over territory. There will be no more war. But unless we succeed, this world is doomed. Technology has advanced much faster than man's ability to use that technology in a sane way. That's what happened on this planet thousands of years ago. We tried to prevent a disaster once before, but we failed. We cannot afford to fail again."

I walked silently beside her, thinking about what she said.

"So there was civilization on the earth in the past and it was destroyed by atom bombs?" I asked her.

"Yes, thousands of years ago. Before any recorded history that people know about today. But you'll find out more about that in your auditing."

We arrived at the center. I went in and took my seat. "That's it," the Supervisor called out. "Start of class!"

I met George over by the chairs. "I'm not sure what is meant by bull baiting," I told him.

"We'll just do it and you'll see," he suggested.

We took the same chairs we had used that afternoon. "Get comfortable," he advised.

I relaxed in the chair and put my hands in my lap.

"Start!" George commanded.

I sat and again stared into his eyes. It seemed much easier this time. I began to relax and enjoy the same expansive sensation I had experienced earlier.

Suddenly George leaned forward.

"I see what you're up to," he said to me slyly. "You're trying to seduce me aren't you? You just think I'm an easy lay."

I stared at him, not moving, not sure what to do.

"I know you girls from Michigan," he continued, his voice becoming louder. Some of the students at the tables were looking in our direction.

"Your reputation has preceded you. I know what you're interested in. It's SEX," he said the last word very loudly, his face very close to mine. My eyes were beginning to tear.

"I know all about you. You're just interested in one thing, aren't you? And here I thought you liked me for my mind," he continued, disgustedly. Some of the students were beginning to smile.

"You're not interested in my mind at all, are you? You just want my body. That's it, isn't it? You just want my body?" Now he was leaning over to me with his face next to mine.

I started to smile, losing my composure because of my embarrassment. "Flunk for smiling! Start!" he said loudly.

"You just want my body, don't you," he repeated this a few times. I tried desperately to control my muscles.

"Say, you know what, you look like a hippie. Just look at those beads." He reached over and took hold of my appleseed necklace.

"You must be a hippie. A trippy hippie. Come on, tell me the truth. Do you like to trip? Did you ever trip and have sex? How do you like it? Sex, I mean. Are you good in bed? I'll bet you are. You Michigan girls are always good in bed." My eyes were tearing and I was in excruciating pain. I blinked, and the tears flowed down my face.

"Flunk for blinking! Start!" George said sternly.

"Yeah, I know all about you Michigan girls. Say, what kind of hairstyle is this?" He reached over and pulled my hair.

"I've seen better hairstyles at the zoo. And those clothes. Really," he said with mock sarcasm. "Couldn't you find something that fits? Or don't you want to show off your body? Say, do you mind if I look at your body?" I was feeling humiliated. Even more tears were flowing from my unblinking eyes. My mouth started to twitch.

"Flunk for twitching! Start!"

"So you have a button on your body?" George continued. "Well, we'll just have to work on that. What don't you like about your body? Come on, you can tell me." I just continued to stare.

"You know," he went on, "you could stand to lose some weight. Just a little though. I don't like girls who are too thin. But you have that country look. That wholesome look. Are you wholesome? I'll bet you are. Maybe you've never had sex. Maybe you're a virgin. Hey, I've never met a virgin before." I decided that what I had to do was to look at one point on his face and concentrate on that instead of on what he was saying. I chose a spot in the middle of his forehead. This seemed to make it a little easier. Suddenly he clapped his hands in front of my face. I jumped. "Flunk for moving! Start!"

He clapped his hands again. I didn't move a muscle.

He leaned over and blew in my ear. "Did you like that? Did you? I could do it again." He leaned over toward me. I followed him with my eyes, but didn't move.

"Very good, Margery, very good. You are doing very well. I think you'll make a fine auditor. That's it. You pass TR 0 bullbaited."

I tried to relax my body. Strangely, now that I was doing TR 0, I couldn't seem to stop it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to blink. My eyes felt like they were coming out of my head. I still had the "high" feeling I had during TR 0. I felt like I was "stoned."

George clapped me on the shoulder. "Don't take it personally," he advised me. "It's just part of the drill. Now it's your turn to bullbait me."

I looked at him in shock. "I can't do that," I looked at him desperately.

"Why not?" he smiled. "It's just part of the drill. Everyone has to do it. It isn't anything personal."

"I know, but I don't want to hurt your feelings."

"That's just the thing. There isn't anything personal about it. It's just part of the training to be an auditor. You're actually doing me a favor by finding my buttons and flattening them. Go ahead. Just try it." "Start!" He sat back and resumed his TR 0.

I swallowed. "All right, mister," I started in. "You gave it to me and now I'm going to give it right back to you. Think you can take it?" I noticed his eyebrow move.

"Flunk for moving your eyebrow. Start!" I told him.

"Think you can take it?" I repeated. "What kind of man are you anyway? How could you ask me all those embarrassing questions? Those things are none of your business." I just sat there, unable to go on. I started to laugh. "George," I told him, "I just can't do this. I'm not used to it."

He relaxed and smiled. "OK, I guess we've done enough for one day. Your confront will come up. It won't be long before you will be able to bullbait anyone. But that's enough for now."

He shook my hand. "We'll finish the TR's tomorrow. You might like to listen to a tape of Hubbard for the rest of the class tonight."

He showed me where the tapes were filed in a file cabinet in the back of the room. He handed me a tape. I plugged in the headphones, wound the tape leader around the take-up reel and started the tape.

I heard a booming voice.

"Welcome to the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course," Hubbard intoned to his invisible audience. "What's the year?" pause, "A.D. what?" Someone answers from the audience "A.D. 15?" (I later learned that Scientologists number their years from the date Dianetics was published. Therefore A.D. 15 to a Scientologist would be 1965.)

"OK," continued the mellifluous voice on the tape. "What planet are we on? Earth? What in the world are we doing on Earth?" Laughter came from the audience.

Hubbard's voice had a hypnotic effect. He sounded so confident, so certain of himself. Strong and confident. I continued to listen to his voice as he told spellbinding stories about different things he had done in his life. Anecdotes about his experiences in the circus, as a seaman, as a photographer, as a pilot. It seemed as if there wasn't anything he hadn't done.

After a while, I found it very difficult to follow his train of thought. Some of the sentences didn't make any sense, and I wondered what the point of the tape was. But I found myself unable to stop listening. There was something about Hubbard's voice that was compelling. Maybe just the fact that he sounded more sure of himself than anyone I had ever heard before. Even on tape he exuded the jovial confidence of a man who had life firmly under control. "Life is just a game," he instructed his audience, "not to be taken seriously. Seriousness equals mass." That's a new way of looking at it, I mused.

The events of the day were beginning to catch up with me. I found myself yawning. The Supervisor came over to me.

"Take off the headphones," she commanded with her yet expressionless face. I complied immediately.

"Find your MU," she said tersely.

"My MU?" I said with a tired voice.

"Yes. Your misunderstood word. The only reason a person yawns when studying is because of a misunderstood word. So you'll have to find your word, then go back earlier in the tape and listen to it again."

"I think I'm just tired," I looked up at her. "It's been a very long day."

"Don't Q and A," she sounded annoyed. "According to the tech the only reason a person yawns while studying is because of an MU. The tech is never wrong. So find your MU. That's an order."

"OK," I answered meekly. I went to find a dictionary. I also noticed a Scientology dictionary lying on the table. I looked up the expression she had used: "Q and A."

"Q and A," I read, "means question and answer. It means one did not get an answer to his question. It also means not getting compliance with an order...."

I rewound the tape, and started it up again. Did I really have a misunderstood word? Couldn't I just be tired? I wondered about her statement, "The tech is never wrong." Something bothered me about that, but I wasn't sure what it was. I went back to listening to my tape, trying to locate a word I hadn't understood.

Soon, however, it was 10:30, and I heard, "That's it. End of class. Let's gather around to report our wins."

There was the sound of chairs scraping against the floor as everyone squeezed in around one table.

"All right," the Supervisor stood stiffly in front of us. "Who had a win today?"

"I did," one of the students volunteered. I looked over to a young, slim boy sitting across from me. "I was auditing a PC (preclear) today, and he totally keyed out. I really cognited today that this really does work, and I can actually help people. I just feel really good about the tech, and I'm grateful to Ron for giving it to us."

The rest of the class applauded.

"Yeah," another student joined in, "I did a touch assist today, and the pc's migraine headache blew. This stuff is dynamite." More applause. "My PC finally ran past lives today, and she had a big win," a third student volunteered. "I can't wait to do more sessions."

The supervisor interrupted. "We have a new student today. This is Margery, from Michigan. Would you like to share your wins with us tonight?" I realized that everyone was looking at me expectantly.

"Well, everything is all so new to me. I'm not really sure. I guess you could say I keyed out when I did TR 0. I didn't think I would be able to do it, but toward the end I felt like I could sit there forever. I felt really good at the end," I volunteered, not wanting to let them down. I felt relieved as they began to applaud.

I hadn't even had time to think about everything that had happened during the day. When did this day begin? I thought back, trying to remember. That morning in Michigan seemed like an event from the remote past.

A few other students shared their "wins," then we were dismissed. I walked back to the house looking up at the bright stars in the western sky. Could it really be possible that I was still living in the same world, and these were the same stars shining that night in the faraway Michigan skies? Already that world seemed to be fading into the distant past. This was a different world entirely. And I could feel myself already starting to become a different person.

Even now, walking back to the house, I felt like I could almost touch the sky. The heady euphoria from the TR's was still with me.

The Road to Total Freedom, I thought as I looked up at the starry sky. I wonder where that road will lead me?

If only I had known the answer to that question then, I could have saved myself a twelve-year nightmare.

Chapter 5

Do Fish Swim? Do Birds Fly?

Ethics, Conditions. TR1: Dear Alice. TR3. TR4. Tone 40 ashtray. TR9. Gone.

I was in a strange city in which the buildings were all a monotone shade of grey. I stood in the middle of a wide street as hundreds of people ran past me, shouting at me and motioning for me to follow them. I sensed danger. Everyone seemed to be running toward an opening at the side of the street. It looked like the entrance to a subway station. As I ran down into the dark opening, a door closed heavily behind me.

In the darkness I saw people huddled together, some crying, some silent. I understood suddenly that this was a bomb shelter. I was in some city of the future. The faces around me mirrored the terror I was feeling inside. Suddenly I felt the impact of something hitting the ground above us with tremendous force. The earth was shaking violently. Several people near me were screaming as panic began to spread. I knew there was no hope. The earth shook crazily as all life above us was destroyed.

I opened my eyes. Sunlight was streaming through the front windows. Oh, I thought with relief, it was just a dream. Then I realized that the earth really was shaking. The pictures on the opposite wall were swaying back and forth against the wall. "What in the world?" I said out loud. On the other side of the room, a man with deep blue eyes and a dark suntan was watching me with obvious interest. He was dressed in a white uniform with gold braid hanging from the shoulder. He sat on his cot, putting on his shoes.

"Don't worry, it's only a tremor." He seemed oblivious to the shaking room. "We get them all the time."

I didn't say anything, but lay there clutching my sheet and waiting for the shaking to stop. Finally, it did.

"I've never felt anything like that before." I was trying not to let my voice reflect the panic I was feeling. "If that's just a tremor, I'd hate to be in a real one."

I looked curiously at my roommate. The room had been empty when I came back from class last night. I had fallen into an exhausted sleep, and did not remember anyone coming into the room during the night. The third bed also looked like it had been slept in.

"Sea Org members must not get much sleep," I commented. "I didn't hear you come in during the night."

He looked over and smiled. "We can't be thinking about sleep when there is a planet to clear," he said moralistically. "We can all catch up on sleep later. Ron says that every minute of time is like a gold coin that we have to spend. And how we spend them may very well determine the fate of the earth." He looked over at me challengingly, and I suddenly felt guilty for being in bed.

"What time is it anyway?" I asked, not seeing a clock anywhere in the room. "It's about 0800," he answered, using military time. "Aren't you supposed to be on course?"

"Oh, no, I'm late," I wailed. I grabbed my clothes and ran to the bathroom down the hall. Within seconds I was sprinting toward the center. No time for coffee this morning. I just had a second to glance appreciatively at the warm morning sun, already high in the sky.

I walked into the courseroom, and looked around for George. He was busy giving a checkout to one of the other students. As I looked in his direction, trying to catch his attention, I heard a voice behind me.

"Miss Wakefield, you're late." It was more accusation than observation. I turned around to look into the steely eyes of the Course Supervisor. "I'm afraid you'll have to go to Ethics." She handed me a pink sheet of paper on which she had written, "Late for class. To Ethics for handling."

"Ethics?" I looked at her for an explanation.

"Ethics. There in the back. You'll see the sign on the door." She pointed down the hallway to an office in the back.

Obediently, I headed down the hall and knocked on the half open door. On the door was a sign: "Ethics. Master at Arms."

"Come in." The voice sounded like that of a child.

I peered into the room and saw a young teenage boy seated at a desk behind an E-meter. "Well, what is it?" he looked at me coolly.

"I was late for course," I explained, handing him the pink sheet. "I'm afraid I overslept. I was extremely exhausted last night."

"Do you have some counter-intention to being on course?" he looked at me accusingly.

"Counter-intention?" I asked.

He handed me a Scientology dictionary. "Look it up," he ordered.

I took the dictionary and turned quickly to the C's. "Counter-intention," I read. "A determination to follow a goal which is in direct conflict with those known to be the goals of the group."

"You need to locate your counter-intention that caused you to be late for course," he said matter of factly.

"Well, I think it was just that no one woke me up. I don't have an alarm clock. I would buy one but I spent all my money on the course." I looked at him helplessly. Why was I feeling guilty?

"I'd like to indicate that you are in a condition of Danger," he looked at me coldly.

Why was I feeling so defensive around this kid, I wondered to myself. He couldn't be older than thirteen or fourteen. Yet he had the demeanor of someone much older. He spoke with the authority of an adult accustomed to commanding others.

"What is a condition of danger?" I was feeling more and more insecure.

"Here," he said, handing me a set of papers in red ink, stapled together, and titled, "Conditions." "Go back in the