Cult Classic

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Class Act
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health: $8. Dianetics course: $35. My introductory membership to the International Association of Scientologists: worthless.

Fourth day in, my $80 BEAST expense account $60 lighter, and Robert Stevens was an official noob Scientologist. After signing some forms that declared my faith in Scientology, I was provided the course materials and ushered into an austere study area cordoned off with glass. A nervous man in a leather jacket entered; we made our introductions. Ray had been called down from the 6th floor where he was performing “guard duty.” After it was ascertained I'd had no alcohol or any kind of drugs (including aspirin, but not nicotine or caffeine) within the last 24 hours, school was in session.

I was an ideal student, churning through the course material and supplying written examples of Scientology concepts. My literacy impressed the instructor, though he insisted, “Dianetics will raise your IQ.” I already felt like a freakin’ genius as the course booklet, with its large clipart graphics, seemed geared towards grade-schoolers. I was even given a pile of children’s and intermediate level dictionaries and told to look up any words I didn’t know. I was encouraged to “act out” any concepts I was unsure of, using brightly painted wood blocks; Ray demonstrated. I was tested periodically for my understanding of complicated words like “analytic” and “mission.”

I learned about the “reactive mind,” and how it can hold you back by recording nasty little “mental image pictures” called “engrams.” An engram is basically a freeze-frame of a physically traumatic event, recording every minute detail, no matter how insignificant. The idea here is that if you somehow get knocked out, and while you’re unconscious an ice cream truck passes, Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” will torment you the rest of your days. You may even dump your girlfriend if she becomes too fond of ragtime and never know why.

I was now on the road to “clear,” a process Neil said costs about $40,000. Until that glorious day I would be a lowly “preclear,” or “pc.” Once clear, a Scientologist attains “OT,” or “operating thetan” level. OT levels range from 1 to 15, and the Xenu story is taught at OT3. Ray told me he has been a Scientologist for about 20 years, and he’s still not clear. You can’t rush these things, I guess.

The next day I would begin to “audit.”

No signs of intelligent life.
I took my seat two minutes before the scheduled time and casually began to speak, when I was harshly shushed by a schoolmarm clutching a clipboard. The only other person in the room was a lanky nerd laden with expensive volumes. The teacher watched the clock for the full two minutes, and then said she’d be taking “roll call.” “Steven?” she said, looking back and forth between us. The nerd raised his hand. “Robert?” she said, still scanning the room as if someone might pop his head out of a ventilation shaft and indicate his presence.

Some stragglers arrived and I was paired up with a dumpling of a woman, my “auditing twin.” Before we could begin in earnest, I was to hone my skills on an inanimate object. We sat opposite one another, and my twin was instructed to place a large Raggedy Ann-type doll on her lap. I read from the 10-step Dianetics auditing procedure card: I told the doll the session was beginning and that it should close its eyes. It did not comply. I made the cotton-stuffed preclear aware that “In the future, when I utter the word ‘cancelled,’ everything I have said to you while in a therapy session will be cancelled and will have no force with you.” At the behest of the human dumpling, the doll nodded its agreement. I prompted the doll the recall a traumatic incident, and continue repeating the details of the incident until either no more information was being revealed or the doll’s mood lightened. My twin, a full grown woman, made expressive gestures with the dolls arms, and spoke in an eerily regressive toddler voice. After hearing about the doll’s early childhood swing set accident numerous times, I said “cancelled,” asked “are you in present time?” and then said “When I count from five to one and snap my fingers you will feel alert. Five, four, three, two, one.” (Snap!)

I was told the auditing session was a “win.” The doll had successfully banished an engram from its reactive mind. It looked healthier to me.

I took turns reading from the procedure card and being read to by both the dumpling and a quiet, balding, middle-aged gent who had to stop recalling a minor childhood knee-scraping because it was too painful. “No more,” he bellowed, opening his moistened eyes and wringing his hands. That was enough auditing for the both of us. Both he and the dumpling, and the doll, for that matter, became distraught as their repetitive recall of events invariably led to deep-seated parental issues. Auditing, the main tool of Scientology, is more or less a Freudian psychoanalysis-based technique known as exposure therapy, only with a bunch of unnecessary convoluted jargon, a bit of clunky sci-fi, a pinch of hypnotic suggestion, and administration by unqualified practitioners. I talked to several local counselors who were appalled by this. “Exposure therapy has its benefits,” said one psychology professor I spoke to, “but when done by a nonprofessional it can be very dangerous, and at worst, could lead to a full psychotic break.” Coupled with the church’s instructions to avoid drugs, prescription or otherwise, “auditing” can and probably does cause more harm than good.

The schoolmarm, named Kathleen, kept me after class to talk engrams. She told me of the time she gave birth. Scientologists observe a ritual known as “silent birth,” ostensibly done for the safety of the child. If someone—a doctor, for instance—were to talk about, say, infant botulism, as happened to Kathleen, the child’s reactive mind would record an engram, and the infant would be afflicted with whatever illness was mentioned. Coincidentally, infant botulism can be a side effect of feeding a newborn infant Hubbard’s Barley Formula, which contains honey, and is preferred by Scientologists to breastfeeding. But, Kathleen averred, her baby’s botulism was caused by a doctor saying “botulism.”

My budget nearly depleted, there was but one chapter remaining in my adventure into sci-fi cultism: The Scientology Halloween party. I was encouraged by the church members to bring as many friends along as possible. I could only find one “thetan” brave enough to take the challenge.

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