My Experience With Scientology

I consider Scientology to be one of the most dangerous belief systems on the planet and I have to confess that it once helped me immensely--both directly and indirectly. Talk about a head-scratcher!

No, I was never a Scientologist. Here's the story:

In February of 1984, I ran away from my third wife. That wee little thing had me absolutely terrified. I ran like a rabbit with a rabid fox on its bunny tail, pulled out of Chinook, Montana in a beatup 1967 Plymouth Fury and didn't slow down until Portland, Oregon, swallowed me safely from sight.

Portland nearly killed me.

The struggle to survive in that city...wow. The stories...but we're here to talk about Scientology.

Okay, see, I was desperate to find a job and wound up signing on with a telemarketing boiler room, cold calling total strangers and attempting to set chimney cleaning appointments. My new employer had four chimney sweeps on staff. We set 'em, they cleaned 'em, and we got a percentage of the take.

Except I couldn't close a single &#!$%!! sale. Man, I tried. It wasn't like I'd never been in sales before, either. I'd taken a college class in sales. Hell, I'd sold Amway door to door in trailer courts, for Pete's sake!

But not there. Not in Portland. The first day wasn't too scary, but when my fourth day on the job was done and gone without a single close to my credit...desperation doesn't even come close to describing how I felt that evening.

Roaming the streets, looking for different work, something I could actually do, I saw a Help Wanted sign...at the Portland Scientology Center.

Yep. In I went.

They didn't really want to hire anybody, of course. That's not how they work--as I soon found out. No, what they do is, you put in your hours, and they credit you with a few mythical magical Scientology Dollars...toward the cost of taking courses in Scientology.

Okay, by the time I had this figured out, I was quite logically a tad disgusted and ready to scoot on outa there...but they'd already brought in the local Big Gun, the dude who was an expert in using his communications skills to control the sucker--I mean, the potential new member--to the point of no return. He was truly good at what he did; it was obvious that most folks coming in off the street like I'd done, desperate and afraid as I was...would have been easy meat.

However, I had some mad skills. LIke being nearly forty years of age with a life track record of some accomplishment here and there...and also having already been a member of Eckankar for nine years at that point. My Eck studies had helped me garner a few spiritual defense techniques I'd not always had, but those techniques were definitely with me that night.

I needed them, too.

What my would-be controller couldn't know was that in order to remain mentally and emotionally untouched by his verbal assault, I'd left the body...sort of. That is, I was sitting there, talking to him all right, but also picturing myself as being above myself, looking down, just calmly observing this little unspoken war the two of us had going.

I was also silently chanting the Hu, an ancient word for God that is found in every language on Earth--and which further helped me  stay in balance.

As a last ditch effort to reel me in--the fellow across the desk must have thought he'd hooked the Great White Whale of all Scientology prospects--I was asked to view a video.

Why not? I figured to learn something, not what they wanted me to learn, but something...and I most certainly did do just that.

The room was a weird little place with a super-high ceiling. I was the room's only occupant. The viewing screen was positioned high on the wall so that you had to crane your neck a bit to watch the show...and the man in the movie doing the talking was filmed from a camera angle that looked up at him as well. You know, like, look up to God. The positioning was so blatant that I might have burst out laughing...had I not known full well that I was alone in the enemy camp.

These people were not my friends.

I watched the show. My would-be recruiter tried to outmaneuver me verbally one more time. And, finally, I walked out.

Sort of.

Yeah, I made it out of the building in one piece, but something was wrong with my balance! Something physical had happened in there, in that building with those dangerous, dangerous people! Okay, so it was probably in my brain, but still.... I was on tilt, staggering sideways, having to struggle constantly to adjust my course so that I ended up walking down the sidewalk instead of wearing it.

Whoa!

It only took a few minutes to settle down, after which I noticed quite clearly that I felt...lighter. Not so terribly concerned. I found myself actually believing it might be possible to make a sale the following day. The Big Dog had feverishly attempted to control me, yes, but he has also truly removed some sort of inner blockage from my panicky psyche.

I had no doubt then that this was true...and I have no doubt today.

But it still didn't make him my friend. A man who hands you a gift in one hand and a slave collar in the other is no one's friend.

He must have been absolutely stunned that I was able to calmly walk out of there, tilt or no tilt. No innocent twenty-something fresh from the streets could have done it; I know that for a fact.

The next day I closed not one but four sales.

And eventually I learned that I was also working for Scientologists at the boiler room. Barb, the supervisor, was always supportive and never controlling--not in her job description or her personality, most likely. Scientologists are extremely careful to follow the highest code of ethical conduct in business dealings, as I also learned. If I set a chimney cleaning appointment, but the sweep discovered on arrival that the chimney didn't really need cleaning, it was not cleaned--the sweep simply advised the homeowner and left without payment.

That was a good thing.

Another good thing was a book by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology--but not just any book. It was (and is) titled The Problems of Work...and it turned out to be, bar none, the most helpful text for surviving in the workplace that I've ever read in my life. I might even have to read it again someday.

But I won't set foot inside another Scientology Center.

Ever.