http://www.julian.org/writing/scientology.html


An Encounter With Scientology
Julian Palmer

In a library I read (or more accurately flicked through) two
books. One was called "What is Scientology?" It was a book
outlining the Church of Scientology, its methods, aims, beliefs
and there was also a short biography of its founder and central
brain, L. Ron Hubbard.

He certainly sounded like a dynamic, innovative man. Then I came
across a book called "Bare faced messiah," by Russell Miller.
This book was about what the author claimed to be truth about L.
Ron Hubbard. The book basically said that his background and
qualifications outlined in the official Scientology literature
were made up; that they were all a pack of blatant lies. And
there were other things the book described about L. Ron Hubbard
that were not particularly complimentary to his character.
I was rather bemused by the whole Scientology thing, although I
believed the techniques could and probably do help a lot of
people. I felt it was all rather thin in substance and content. I
picked up "Dianetics" and put it down shortly afterwards. I
couldn't face the verbosity, the pomposity and narrowness of the
authors mind set. It was obvious to me that holding some metal
things in your hand and having someone regress you through past
experiences wasn't going to solve all your problems, and turn you
into some sort of almost mythical super person called a "clear."
Although I thought it was a possibly useful technique. Although
I'm not particularly interested in techniques.

A few days latter I was walking along a street in the city, when
I saw an intense looking young man asking people to fill out a
survey. I went up to him to see what he was doing and he asked me
If I wanted to complete a survey. I said, "Ok, why not." First,
he asked me what I wanted from life. I leaned forward to read his
badge; It was a Scientology badge with his name on it. I
announced that I wanted to be a clear! He didn't take this very
well and said quite angrily that he had better things to do than
waste his time. I smiled and said I was only joking, and said
that what I really wanted from life was experience. Then he asked
me what I wanted to be in future. I said I wanted to be more of
the same I am now. He carefully wrote this down. He asked me what
I wanted to change about myself. I said "Nothing." This didn't
faze him none, and he wrote this down too.

He then asked me what was more important, experience, nothing or
being more than I am now. I said that experience and being more
than I am are both as important as each other, because being more
than I am now is dependant on experience. And I said nothing was
nothing, so that can't be important. He looked back at his
folder, but couldn't make anything out of the information I had
given him. But it didn't worry him, he continued to give me the
"hard sell." He asked If I would like to take a personality test.
I really didn't have anything important to do that day, so I was
pleased to go along and take myself to wherever I was going.

We entered a building with walls covered in rather garish posters
advertising Scientology and "Dianetics." Here and there was a
photo a L. Ron Hubbard; looking like some old ape king. The young
man asked me to sit down in the far end of room by myself at a
desk. He then gave me a list of 200 questions. He said the
results would be put into a computer when I had finished. I've
forgotten the questions in the test, but I thought they were a
little oddly written, and you could see through them quite
easily. But I tried to answer the questions as honestly as I
could.

While I was being bemused doing the test, the young man brought
in a group of about four young Australian Asian men in their mid
twenties. They were all just as bemused as I was, and when he
asked them to do a personality test, they said their parking
meter would run out soon and they had some shopping to do. But
the young man insisted or demanded that one of them stay. One of
the Asian men, the one who had done most of talking decided to
stay; almost it seemed with the attitude that it would be good
for a laugh. I watched a dark haired young woman wearing a
uniform like that of an air hostess, sitting behind a desk
talking to the Asian man about Scientology in a forceful way. He
defended himself by arguing over certain points that he knew
would be difficult for them to answer. The young man then
intervened and started shouting at the Asian man, telling him he
didn't like people like him in the building wasting everyone's
time, and then he ordered him out of the building. The Asian man
laughed in the face of this confrontation and left still quite
bemused by it all.

After a while I finished my test and handed it to the young man
who strongly suggested that I read an illustrated "Beginners
guide to Scientology" booklet while he earnestly processed the
results. He then handed a piece of paper to the young woman,
saying something about "being a clear." I think that he thought I
was serious when I said I wanted to be a clear, or otherwise I
thought I could have achieved such a high score that I qualified
to be a clear. What would they say then? I wondered.

Then the young man came over and introduced me to the young
woman, she was quite outgoing and laughed a little too much at my
comments about being dragged in here. She sat down behind the
desk and turned into serious mode when she pulled out the graph.
There was a line that zig zagged through the middle of the normal
zone. The highest score was +100 and at the bottom of the scale
was the lowest score of -100.

She said my results showed I was inclined to depression with a
score of -44, which I felt was relatively accurate. Although my
depressions were quite deep, they tended to last for an average
of a few hours, and this happened when I had I lost something in
myself, a habit, a view of the world, an illusion, a belief etc.
She also pointed out that I was nervous, at -34. I was almost
never nervous. And I also achieved a score of -40 for
communication, which defined me as withdrawn. This was true; in
the sense that I didn't really communicate with many people very
often, and I rarely made any effort to. But when I did feel a
need to communicate, It wasn't a problem. I could say what I
wanted to say better than most people.

If these were the characteristics of my personality, then I was
quite happy with them. She explained that the only effective way
that I could bring the lines to the top of the graph was with
Scientology techniques. When she pointed and circled the lines
that went below the normal range, I even started to get a little
worried about this, she was absolutely firm and convincing. Was I
in some way deficient? But then I quickly pulled myself together
and saw what was really happening here.

How could I tell her that I wasn't interested in getting involved
in this kind of belief system? What could I tell her that would
make sense to her? It seemed there was nothing I could say. That
I approached life in my own way, in an active manner. That I was
content with the way I was. What does a zig, zagging line say
about a person anyway? This was a personality test, it was
somebody else's standardised definition of how I should be. I
tried to explain some of these thoughts to her, but my words just
hit her and slid off. Her response to these thoughts was,
"So you think you're different to everybody else, is that it?"
And I said, "Well, not really...."

I changed my tactic. I said that different things work for
different people, maybe you should let people decide what works
for them, everybody has different needs. Her response was that
she had tried every "self improvement" course and book there was
and she knew Scientology to be the best. What could I say, that
my attitude was more.......spiritual. No, she would then go on to
say that Scientology was an entirely spiritual system with the
Thetan and all that. My approach wasn't spiritual anyway; nothing
is spirit because nothing isn't. Anyway, I wasn't here to prove
myself to her. I had no reference in her world, it would be
almost impossible to explain myself, especially as she was giving
me the hard sell. So I meekly tried to explain myself, failing to
get any recognition that my thoughts were valid. When I kept
resisting, She said "Oh, I should have known, you're one of these
4 d's people" and she pointed on the graph showing my score of
+40 for certainty, which was my highest score.

I didn't like this, she was being condescending, now I was the
small person. Her manner and words were effectively saying "Look
at me. See how confident and happy I am. And look at you, you're
unemployed, your lines are way down there. She said "Look at
these barriers you put around yourself." Yes the barriers were
there, they were the barriers that were blocking out her attack.
What she didn't see was her own barriers and her own failure to
see my attitude and point of view. She didn't see her own game,
her pretending to be big and making me look small so she could
protect herself and bolster her ego. At a surface level, she had
absolutely no idea what she was doing. She thought she was simply
showing a person Scientology, a marvelous system for using the
mind. She thought of her motivations as being purely altruistic
and good. But by trying to "recruit" people and make them agree
with you, you are reasserting and strengthening your beliefs; and
your conviction that you are right and others are wrong. In doing
this you increase your "position" in the world, by having more
confidence. But this confidence is not real. I could see she was
an outward show and behind that wasn't much strength of
character. She was playing stupid games, just in order to be big,
so as to protect herself against attack.....she was a master of
this game. And I wasn't very good at it; I don't like to play
such games.

She said "I've seen people like you come in here before, they
come in here. Take the test. Score average, below average. They
come in a year later and they are right down there." She pointed
at the bottom of the graph. It looked like that is where I was
going, way down there. That isn't good at all. I had been beaten
good! She had won. She had the big desk, a nice uniform, she had
the whole damn Scientology thing behind her. It all fell on top
of me in an instant. Who was I to argue with that? What did I
know anyway, just another Joe off the street. I was a was a poor
communicator, was inclined to depression and was unemployed.
While she was perfect and flawless of course.

Eventually, as my argument became more and more pathetic, I
insisted on leaving as I was tired of pointless arguments. She
laughed, like that was Ok. But it was almost like a victory
laugh, to down play and laugh me off. It almost jeered at me. But
not quite, it was a perfectly reasonable laugh.

I knew I should have handled the situation better. My only
intention was to find out a little more about Scientology "first
hand" as it were. They didn't see this attitude in me, they were
fighting battles, to reinforce and bolster their position in the
world. I used to have the same problem with Christians, I'd go
along with them, in the clearly stated attitude I was just with
them to see what they were up to; how they operated in life. But
they always wanted me to accept Jesus as my saviour and the Bible
as the word of God. When they did this I just explained my point
of view, but they never listened; not a word. They were always
intent on converting me.

There is nothing you can really say to these people that will get
through to them, they are so strong in their beliefs and they
have such a strong belief system behind them. One person cannot
really say anything outside that belief system without being
ignored or derided. Trying to change the conversation into a
reasonable one is pointless. From their point of view, if you
disagree with them, then you are wrong. There usually isn't any
middle ground, their attitude is "I am right and you are wrong."
Any other point of view will be devalued. "There is only one real
way and it is my way."

In any case, people such as this cut themselves off from life, by
seeing the world through a belief system. And they are engaged in
a continual process of fighting for, defending and protecting
this belief system which evokes various emotions in themselves.
They reassert this belief system in themselves by sharing it with
others, and sometimes quite forcefully preaching to others about
the "rightness" of their belief system. They have found a home,
it is very comfortable and safe, this belief system may have
helped them a lot, it is probably where all their friends are
too; This belief system is very important to them. By engaging in
all these activities they fall prey to the ego games of trying to
be bigger or better than others, and the various protective and
defensive emotions that are activated when one is trying to
uphold a belief system that ultimately has no value and no worth
in itself.