Part 8
I became public in September of 2004. I had spent a year on staff. I had been a Scientologist for one year also. I was looking forward to being a public. Being a staff member was difficult I thought, so being a public is surely the way to go. It actually took me a few more years to work out that being a non-Scientologist was actually the way to go. Being a public is just as difficult. The demands and expectations are on them as well. And because so many refuse to give in to the hard sell, there are bigger expectations put onto the few who continue to turn up week -in and week-out. I became dedicated to the IAS and believed that it was there to protect the group, and what the group represented. This, of course, is not true. But I didn't know this then. I worked hard to get my lifetime membership, which cost about $3500 (Aussie dollars). I paid off my freeloader debt, which didn't amount to much, as I hadn't done much. I started the PTS/SP course. I volunteered for CCHR.
Once I was through my liability, HCO started to attempt to recruit me again. I wasn't interested at this point, but they continued to try. And I was too nice to tell them to GTFO. Therefore they continued. I was still an illegal PC at this stage, but was assured by the DSA it would be lifted when the necessary steps were handled. I never saw any paper work for the declare or the lifting of it, but I believe it got lifted after I completed the PTS/SP course (making it about January 2006).
I have observed in myself, as I looked back over the many experiences in Scientology, a decision to do a certain thing, and there with it, a counter-opinion to that choice. One was in agreement with what was being asked of me (timid voice), and the other was a deeper sense of knowingness (integrity). Whilst being regged to join staff initially, this knowingness was there. "Don't do this thing. You don't believe in religions, or whatever it is they are offering". But timid voice won that one, "Sure, where do I sign?"
And then I would reinforce the initial, wrong, choice. Try to make it right. Produced like mad. My stats were mostly in normal, or affluence. When I bothered to keep stats. You get away with a lot when you are known as a producer. Until the Ethics Officer has a CR to turn in, and comes asking for conditions and stats. And this was always handleable with good old fashioned "TRs". An ack, and granting of beingness. These are two things I learnt a long time before Scientology. I learnt them from living life. Yet I never analysed, or drilled them, so I never really thought about them. So I inadvertently gave Scientology the credit for them. Until I started to see how other Scientologists fared with these skills. I didn't find it that difficult to out TR even a Pro-TR graduate. I didn't set out to do this. And it took a long time until I realised it was happening, as I wasn't looking for it. This is when I started to realise the robotic nature of Scientology training. I observed the product of the training, the auditors. I observed how they were doing in life. I only have reality with post GAT auditors. And one thing that confused me a lot was how could someone be so trained in the workings of the mind, yet still be so troubled in their own personal handling of life. I've known too many auditors whose training did not help them, except in the ability to audit (and again I can't compare them to pre-GAT auditors here).
And this goes for admin trained personnel also. Scientology admin tech is complex and convoluted. But we had to be in agreement with it. And I tried. But I found the easiest way, whilst on staff, was to ignore it and produce. As opposed to use something else, and produce. That would never have been acceptable. I never completed any mini hats, or other staff training. I believe this was one of my successful actions. Whilst on staff the first time, I relied on communication, and granting of beingness. I never raised my voice to get my way. I didn't consider it necessary. And to me it was a failure, as it was more of a form of punishment. Using force rather than agreement. I studied LRHs teachings on these points and found myself in agreement with him. So it came as a huge shock to learn about how he himself violated these points. He talked about honesty, yet lied continuously. Again I only learned about these things years later. It was the teachings of LRH that secured me to Scientology. I didn't care that many other Scientologists didn't or couldn't apply them. I didn't care that so many others didn't read his books (before the Basics). I had been searching for knowledge for years, and there seemed so much of it right where I was. I bought as many books as I could. When the congresses were released I bought those too. Somewhere in all that data was the way out of the trap for me. I truly believed that. Well, the way out of the trap was coming, and that is a good bit of the story, but we are not there yet.
LRH became my stable datum. All the contradictions around me could not shake that. They just served to reinforce how much I needed to learn from LRH directly. I chose to disregard the instructions to train as being important, given what I considered the relative failure of those I knew who were trained. Being processed up the Bridge I still considered, but was starting to see that the time involved would be considerable. But I believed in knowledge. And before any word of the Basics, I was studying LRH materials. I did not trust others account of it. Verbal Tech is rife. It is a human trait. I do it all the time myself. But ones opinions are quite often packaged with the data.
The Congresses I found to be an eye opening experience. I read the transcripts first, as I could read so much quicker than listening to the lectures. But eventually I had an experience with them similar to what Jason Beghe talks about. LRH keeps talking about "finally getting it", "finally creating Clears", etc. And then I looked around the Org and those who were there, and wondered where they all were. He kept getting it, then re-getting it, in his day, and here in my day, we still aint got it. Was it ever "got". Show me a mutherfucking Clear. So the Golden Age of Knowledge actually introduced into my world the true foundations of doubt. But still I found no fault with Ron. My doubts were very wafer thin, and nebulous. Perhaps they could be audited out, LOL.
(to be continued)
Neo