After reading Releasing the Bonds, I went back and read the instructions for a do-it-yourself exit therapy. I started to write things down/up (take your pick.)

I decided to start excerpting some of the narrative here. The first excerpt doesn't tell you much and it rambles. I have edited what I wrote slightly. I'll be changing names, dates, orders of things, and other details.

What you get may not make any point, and may end abruptly in the middle of something. I originally wrote this stuff for my benefit, and I found doing it helped a great deal. I wrote over four hundred pages of this stuff. Sometimes I would write until I got tired and stop in the middle of something. I think I will not subject you to all of it.

So here goes.

Milly is the name of the girl who stopped me on the street and sold me a copy of Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health. God, is that a loaded title. This book is also referred to as DMSMH or book one.

A wog is a non scientologist who hasn’t yet been in scientology. Another word for this type of person is raw meat. In the press releases and public literature such a person is referred to as raw public.

A person who leaves scientology is an apostate or a suppressive person or SP. Read the article on newspeak in the back of Orwell’s 1984 for some insights as to what goes on within scientology as far as terminology goes. Especially pay attention to the part about duckspeak.

Milly was this cute little girl with sad eyes. I believe she is now an apostate. She blew with her boyfriend within a couple of months of my recruitment and she never came back while I was in.

Blow is a verb and a noun. One blows when one leaves without permission. Since no one ever gets permission to leave, everyone who leaves is a blow.

I’d been doing drugs for about two years. I started doing drugs in second year of college and continued doing them until the cult captured me.

To justify that statement let me say this. I was informed that the purpose of division six is to capture and control the public. Division six is the public division of the cult organization.

I did a lot of drugs. I never did any drugs when I was home or when I went to other countries. But when I was away from home and in my own country I did a lot of drugs. Mostly what I did was marijuana. This was relatively cheap and easy to get. You can grow marijuana anywhere. It is very much like a weed.

So I went around in this foggy mind state for three years. This partly led up to my getting captured but there’s another factor that played into this. I just recently found out the connections and so it isn’t up there, in my attention on this.

I read science fiction a lot when I was in high school and in college. I never read elron’s stuff. Among the author’s I liked were L. Sprague de Camp, A. E. Van Vogt, Fletcher Pratt, Fritz Leiber, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein. These guys were elron’s contemporaries. Some of them were his buddies and a few of them were followers.

In pre high school days I read Famous Monsters of Filmland and other magazines published and edited by Forrest J. Ackerman. I found out later that Forrest J. Ackerman was elron’s agent.

Man, this is embarrassing stuff. I was going to edit certain things out, because I find them embarrassing now. But they are essential to the story so I'm leaving them in. So here is the next entry, which is prefaced by a single entry from the day before.

Do Fish Swim?

Gnaaaar!

So, Milly . . .

I had this fantasy that I would find someone with whom I could communicate with by means of telepathy. It isn’t going to happen.

So here I am ripe like a banana and having the idea that somewhere there would be somebody I could communicate with without opening my gob. I go walking out on the street thinking, “I’m going out right now and I’m going to find IT.”

I take a left onto the main street. walk half a block and here’s Milly blocking my way holding this little yellow book in front of her. She’s smiling at me with this sad doe eyed look, and her fellow book sellers are blocking all the other avenues of escape. So I stop. “Yeah, what do you want?” or “Oh, all right. I’ll talk to you.” Or I said something like that.

The lion put a claw into my flank. When the zebra is in the lion’s claws it doesn’t have much choice but to be eaten.

Holly: “Have you ever seen this book?” She didn’t say, “Hello.” She didn’t say, “Do you mind if I have a word with you?”

She held up this paperback book and I read, “Diuretics.” And I said, “Diuretics?”

She said, “No.” Pause.

I looked again. Dianetics.

So we got into a conversation – Clear the planet; scientology musicians; l. ron hubbard is Valentine Michael Smith from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land; super literacy; the means to achieve a complete education from kindergarten to University degree in six years (or something like that.) And I gave her a dollar and bought the book and she got my name and address, which is what she needed, I found later, for her stat.

Okay... continue.

(I'm reading this.)

Wieber

It is very interesting to read and see how you were thinking at the time.

I am waiting for the other installments.

Opter

Thanks for not dropping the hammer on me. I don't know what good putting this stuff here will do, but hopefully it will help at least one other person.

I'll put another entry up later today.

As I said, I am editing this to remove time and place references. The story is mine but I think it isn't completely unique.

At some point I got tired of writing the narrative, so expect the story to come to a halt further on. I stopped writing the story and started writing essays on things that bothered me.

Here's the next bit.

When Milly sold me the book she invited me to a coffee house that would be held at her ‘org’ (she didn’t call it an ‘org’) that Friday night. I went to the coffee house that weekend expecting Milly to be there and wanting to ask her some questions.

The ‘org’ was not on a main street. I took public transportation to the nearest cross street. Then I walked to the Co$. This was a very long walk. I finally got there.

I walked in. It was dark. There were seats around with chairs. I can’t remember if there was music or an act or anything. The tables had place mats on them. These were white sheets of legal paper with ronitudes on them. (My word: a ronitude is a brief quotation of l. ron hubbard, usually out of context, and often recited by rote to prove points. It comes from ron and platitude. An example used in a sentence would be, “on any given day, a scientology staff member will say and hear fifty or sixty ronitudes.”)

At the time I didn’t think of them as that. I think there were cartoons to illustrate the various quotes. Of course, they all made good sense. It isn’t until you start to delve that the truth starts to come through. Of course, by then it’s too late for you.

So I asked to see Milly. “Milly isn’t here. She’s on post. She’ll be back after 10. There are other people just as nice who you can talk to.” That may not be an exact quote, but the gist of the response to my inquiry was that.

Some kind of beverage was served I think but I don’t remember eating or drinking. There was a guy at a table with two others. One of whom I later found out was the main registrar. He and another guy were using a lot of verbal force to get the third guy to do something.

There was a short fat woman with glasses, and a bunch of kids. There were posters on the wall with more ronitudes on them.

I wanted to leave, but I wanted to talk to Milly. She was good at selling and getting people in. She could have been quite an asset to the ‘org’ but she didn’t stay and I don’t know what the deal was. There were a number of people on staff because they had bought a book from Milly.

Later on Milly showed up. She wasn’t too pleased with having to talk to me, but she did. She used the PR line on me very well, and then terminated the meeting. I suppose if she had been real gung ho, she would have sold me something but she was finished her shift (13 hours at least) and wanted out of there.

I left without buying anything or giving anybody any money. That was a rare feat.

Man, I hate going over this stuff. Anyway here's the next part. I should use the nineteenth century chapter heading style.

In which our hero meets Norma Staunton; does a personality test but does not get the results; ruin not found, he buys a basic course; he routes on but it is too late to start.

Norma Staunton

I read Dianetics, sort of. I didn’t start at the beginning and read it through the way I was told to. I first read the definition of what a clear is.

I have to back up slightly. I’d read about Scientology earlier in an article in LIFE magazine. I looked this up on the internet just now. The article appeared in November of 1968. So I’d been forewarned. I should have paid attention.

So I knew about clear and that’s the first thing I read about in the book. I’d taken the hook. “Wow. If that were true, I could use that!” I thought. Then I read other parts and looked for the method of doing the auditing. It’s in there, but it’s very obscure, and difficult to understand how to apply.

So I thought, “I’ll go down there and buy an hour of auditing and see if it works,” which is what I did, just after I quit my job. Can you say “stupid?”

So I went to the local Co$ on a Friday night. The place had no one in it and it wasn’t busy at all. I walked in and said I was interested in buying some auditing to see if it worked. (Incidentally that’s a question on one of the sec checks: “Are you here for the sole purpose of finding out if Scientology works?” I guess if you want to know if Scientology works you aren’t good enough to find out if it works or not.)

I was taken to see Norma Staunton. She asked me if I had done a personality test. No I hadn’t and I didn’t want to take one. She said it would be better if I did, so I spent the next half hour answering the personality test questions.

Then I went to see the guy who gives the results of the test. He showed me the graph and started in. I said I was interested in buying some auditing. He stopped right there and took me to Norma.

Norma was very nice and shared her smokes with me. I smoked then. I smoked a lot of her cigarettes and probably left her in the lurch for a while. Anyway, she told me auditing cost $50 per hour and you had to buy it in 12½ hour intensives or it didn’t do you any good. I didn’t have the $625. I only had $50. She sold me the HAS course, the Hubbard Apprentice Scientologist course. I said I’d be back the next day to start. Everyone there insisted I route onto the course immediately.

She initiated a routing form. I went to see the Director of Technical Services and he routed me to the course room, where I met the course supervisor, who told me it was too late to start and I would begin the next day.

There were a couple of people in the room sitting on chairs facing each other. One of them was asking the other, “Do fish swim?” They seemed to be having a good time. The course supervisor explained that they were doing a drill and I would find out about that later. I told her I had figured that it was something like that.

Wieber,

I am still reading this. I like it.

Maybe you didn't intend this... BUT... I get a chuckle out of some of the funny comments you sprinkle into your narrative.

Please... continue (if you feel like it). Or come back to it in a few days when you have collected more thoughts.

Best regards

Thanks, programmer_guy. This stuff is already written and I think it goes up to when I went on the book selling team. It's interspersed with other stuff, like this:


“God made man, but he used a monkey to do it.” Mark Mothersbuagh/Devo.

I love quoting other people than elron. When the anticipation was on for War of the Worlds I said this to several students and staff one day, “No man lives or dies in vain.”

“Is that from LRH?” asked Franklin, the sea org member with visible anticipation.

“No,” I said, “H. G. Wells. It’s the last line in War of the Worlds.” He was visibly doubleplusunpleased. How dare anyone else other than LRH display any kind of wisdom or understanding!

Elaraitch? That might rankle.


I should have more story tomorrow. I edit the stuff a bit before I post it here.

Wieber Please keep posting because it is great. I like reading your story it sounds very much like the way i saw it. Keep up the great work. Stay happy and have a great night.

Does anyone here know the address for where Keith Henson is ? Here is something everyone needs to know about because it undress the true harms of scientology.
http://www.lermanet.com/books/henson.htm . Keith Henson is a 64 year old man who is now sitting in a jail cell, they tell him, for 1 year because of scientology.

Scientology is Evil to the core. SCIENTOLOGY PROTECTS RAPIST AND KILLS. Scientology ruins families and lives everyday. The only thing scientology can Clear is one bank account at a time

LRH was married 3 times which shows he could not stay with one wife.
L.Ron Hubbard was and evil man, crazy in the head schitzo, paranoid, psychopath, who was a psych drug taking, heavy drug using, wife beating alcoholic drunk, pathological liar, coward who let his 3rd wife go to prison for his crimes as he hid and ran away for the remaining years of his life from the FBI. L.Ron Hubbard died with psych drugs shot in his butt.
IMHO Tommy Gorman

The last I read was that Keith is in Riverside jail.

I think that Songbird has said that she has been in snail-mail contact with him. I think that she provided the mail address. Just be careful in what you say if you send mail to him.

Sponge has posted info too.

Hi Wieber

I'm reading you too - and finding it very interesting, as your posts usually are.

Please continue whenever you feel like it.

toml

This doesn't need much of an introduction. I think its pretty much self explanatory.

I kept the fact that I was taking courses at Scientology a secret from other people.

I got up early the next day and went in to take the HAS course. I got a course pack, a check sheet and a book. All this stuff was an extra eight bucks or so. The book was Dianetics 55, a slim little volume on communication, which also introduced the concept of what a spiritual being is. The picture on the cover was of a man in a white military uniform and white WWII era US army pot helmet wrestling a giant snake hanging from a tree.

The course pack was an 8½ by 14 number with mimeographed sheets in it. The covers were stiff green card and the stapled edge had been covered with tape. The contents were HCOBs and HCOPLs. That stands for Hubbard Communication Office Bulletin and Hubbard Communication Office Policy Letter. Although it is standard for courses to begin with Keeping Scientology Working, the HAS course didn’t have that gem in it.

The first thing on the course was some basic study technology. Actually this stuff makes some sense and using it could help people with their school work. Having said that I still advise you to stay away. Struggle if you have to, but you’re better off not having the study technology than being in Scientology.

So the basic study technology essentially is this: look up every word you do not understand in a dictionary. Read each definition and put the word into several sentences for each definition and then restudy the material. Use what is being written about as you study or have it to examine. If you can’t get something then use something else that represents it.

Then there are clay demos, which I suppose is short for clay demonstration. This is a process where you make bits of stuff out of plasticene and stick little cardboard labels in the bits and put them all together with one overall label. Then someone else looks at it and if they get what is on the overall label you pass.

At lunch I talked to this other guy who was just starting. The subject of mind control came up. I was alert to the possibility, but l ron hubbard was very clever at hiding the fact that mind control was being used. If you ask anyone who is in Scientology if they’ve been subjected to mind control they will vehemently deny it and be quite insulted that you brought it up.

At the beginning of the course you find out about student points, which you must keep track of. Since I started the schedule of points for what you do while studying has changed frequently. You get points for every page you read, every word you look up, every demo you do, every clay demo, etc. You get points for listening to lectures, watching films, drawing pictures. It goes on and on.

At the end of the day you total up your points and put them on a graph. The course supervisor then totals all the student points achieved while she was supervising you and that becomes her stat. Stat is scienospeak for statistic.

Day two gets us to the meat of the course: TRs. TR is scienospeak for Training Routine or Training Regimen. A TR is a drill that you do to become skilled at something. What you aren’t told is that the TRs are the first stage of your mind control program.

The first one you do is called OT TR 0. That is phonetically (oh-tee-tee-are-zero.) This stands for operating thetan training regimen zero. Thetan is scienospeak for soul or spirit. The public relations reason for the use of this word is that you are a soul and so to avoid confusion the word thetan is used. There probably is another reason for it but that is the one given.

Most of the TRs consist of doing various things while you sit facing another person who sits about three feet in front of you. In OT TR 0 you sit doing nothing except being there and confronting with your eyes closed. You do that for hours. Each TR is done until you achieve a major stable win.

Here’s where the mind control intent breaks down slightly. To get the full benefit of the TR you should do it for five to eight hours. However, no points can be counted for the drill until it is completed. So the course supervisor has a tendency to rush students through the TRs so she can get the points.

When I speak of benefit here, I am speaking of the benefit achieved by the organization, not the student. This and subsequent TRs induce a mild euphoric hypnotic trance in the person doing them. I found at the end of the first day that I was feeling quite high. I felt very light headed, very relaxed and very good. After a day or two I had come to the conclusion that Scientology did indeed work, that everything claimed must be true and that everyone should have this. I was still in the honeymoon phase.

The next TR is TR 0. This is just like OT TR 0 except now you do it with your eyes open.

It’s been a while and I can’t remember all the numbers. Anyway the next thing is a TR something or other bull bait. In this one you tromp on your partners buttons. Button is scienospeak for an area of embarrassment or discomfort. So if you partner has acne you would say something like, “Hey pimple face!” Then when he reacts to that you say, “flunk” for whatever reason and you start in again, “Hey pimple face!” Eventually he gets to a point where “Hey pimple face!” no longer bothers him.

There’s a benefit to doing this, but I would recommend you stay away from it. Learn to control your negative responses to things on your own. You’ll be better off.

This is a difficult drill to get started on. I had a hard time with it at first. Many others do, as well. Eventually you figure it out.

Then you do several drills in which you use phrases from Alice in Wonderland.

After that come the upper indocs. Indoc being scienospeak for indoctrination.

I want to put a quote here from 1984 from the essay in the appendix called “The Principals of Newspeak.”

“Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian organizations. Examples were such words as Nazi, Gestapo, Comintern, Inprecor, Agitprop. In the beginning the practice had been adopted as it were instinctively, but in Newspeak it was used with a conscious purpose. It was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of the associations that would otherwise cling to it. The words Communist International, for instance, call up a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red flags, barricades, Karl Marx and the Paris Commune. The word Comintern, on the other hand, suggest merely a tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine. It refers to something almost as easily recognized, and as limited in purpose, as a chair or table. Comintern is a word that can be uttered almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily.”

In scienospeak, organization becomes org; distribution secretary becomes dist sec; executive director becomes ED (most people say “ee dee.” Hubbard himself used Ed as in Ed Sullivan); in charge becomes I/C; counter intention is CI; facsimile becomes fac. This brief selection of examples is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg as it were.

A major upper indoc TR occurs when you go into a sound proof room and yell at an ash tray. I was paired up with a young blonde skinny guy with glasses – and pimples. We went into the furnace room of the org. (What an ugly word – org.) The idea behind this drill is to become skilled at giving an order that will bypass any and all intermediary barriers and be obeyed without question or hesitation. These drills, by the way are done both ways, so you also become skilled at obeying an order without question or hesitation.

What you are doing in this drill is only occupying your space and the space of the ash tray. Then you give it commands to “stand up” and “sit down in that chair.” So that’s what we did. First you yell the commands as loud as you can. Then when your throat wears out you speak them in a normal voice. So you tell the ash tray to stand up and then you raise it up off the seat of the chair and into the air above your head. Then you tell it to sit down in the chair and you lower it onto the chair. You repeat this until you have a win. We repeated it until we thought we had a win. We were new at all this so we weren’t exactly sure if we had had a win or not. But we knew when we had had enough.

The next drill is one where you get another person to look at a wall and then go over to it and touch it. The person you do this to is supposed to give you as much grief and resistance as possible to prevent you from having your orders carried out and you by using intention get the other person to obey the commands. This is actually quite a lot of fun. So is bull baiting by the way.

I finished the course in about a week as I was doing it twelve hours a day. Sometime during all this I let it slip to Norma Staunton that I had a $1000 bond saved up. Back then university tuition for the year was $800 and a place to live was $500 for six months.

When I had finished the course Norma comes up and says, “I have a great idea.” And her great idea was that I cash in my bond and buy word clearing method 1. “Just a suggestion,” says Norma and walks away.

I went into agreement with this very quickly. I went home, handled my parents’ antagonism, cashed my $1000 bond, found some more money and took the whole lot back to the org and gave it to Norma. I think that without the conditioning of the course I had just completed I wouldn’t have been so easy to handle. (Norma being a public registrar got something like a ten percent commission, which more than made up for her cigarettes that I smoked. Regular registrars get a one percent commission with bonuses for high stats.)

I have more to tell about this period of time but while we’re on the subject of money, I have this observation. Hardly a day goes by where someone involved with the org doesn’t ask you for money for something. Just about every time you go to the org you come away with less money than you went with.

The image that comes to mind is of an African Massai tribe shooting an arrow into a bull’s neck so they can harvest his blood, mix it with milk and drink it. The only thing is I’m the bull with the arrow in the neck. But it isn't just about me. Just about anyone in scientology is the bull with the arrow in their neck.

Wieber

What you write brings lots of memories for me and they are not nice.

Years ago, when my sister said that the cult is all about money, I protested strongly to what she said.
Now I can see clearly how right she was.

Keep posting. I love reading it.

Opter