My old friend Andy Porter sent in another article, and some more of magnificent photography (The last one I published is here)
Recruitment Day
It was late 1980 and I had been in Scientology for a few months, I’d completed the Communication Course and the Purification Rundown at the Bellevue Mission and I was doing auditor training when a FLAG World Tour came to town. They were looking for people to work in the Universe Corps! Here was an opportunity to get right to the top of the Bridge. The coolest thing you could do, on the WHOLE planet was to be an auditor, and they were offering to train people to be Class 12 auditors at FLAG, the Mecca of Scientology, for free! Here was my chance.
After the Flag World Tour Event you could schedule an appointment to meet with the recruiter to see if you were qualified. I made an appointment and went to see them at the Seattle Org, on 2nd Ave. the very next day.
I showed up eager for the interview. The person I spoke to was very kind, soft spoken; I believe she was an auditor, and not a real recruiter.
The offer they were making was that if you joined the Sea Org, right then, you would go into the Universe Corps and would train full time until you were a Class 12 Auditor. To me this meant that you would get to go all the way up to the top of the bridge and know EVERYTHING, all in one fell swoop. The recruiter went on to guarantee that the Trainees would NEVER be taken off the training for any reason, ever, and that they would just train full time until they made it. I kept double checking; Yes, sign up, and next thing you know you’ll be a Class 12 Auditor!
She further described the details, first of the Universe Corps, and then about life in the Sea Org. She described their Spartan existence and heavy schedule and I explained to her that I’d run away and lived on the streets for a while and so that wouldn’t be a problem for me. I was very agreeable and excited. As we spoke my enthusiasm became infectious, and I made it clear that wanted to join now, right now, and leave asap for Florida.
The woman moved forward with the items on her list: Did I have any debts to pay off first? Were their pesky parents involved or anyone whom I was in connection with, anyone who would try to stop me? No and No.
AT this point we were both getting excited and I am envisioning a plane ride and feeling the humid Florida air. I see myself rising to the top of the auditor trainees, completing the training in record time, clearing people by the dozens, carving a wide swath of something in my wake…
The recruiter interrupts my envisionment of glory…there are a few more questions first.
Have you ever been to see a psychologist?
YES! I describe in some detail a time when I was 7 years old where my brother and 2 sisters and I went to family counselling. I was the youngest of 4 at the time. My oldest sister was a rebel and my dad was old school, raised in Texas. So their conflict spilled over and somehow we all wound up talking to a shrink. She asked if I was ever alone with the psychologist and wanted details of what we discussed. Once the recruiter was convinced that the family counsellor didn’t drug or rape me, she was almost done, just one last question, and I would be on the plane to Flag… I could sense that the answers I was giving were “right” answers, I could see it in the body language of the recruiter, Yes, this was gonna work…
At that point I was sure I was in, all the way, but there was one last question…
Have you ever taken LSD?
This question catches me by surprise…what? Taken LSD? I’m so lost in the excitement, thinking of packing for the plane and a new beginning… without thinking it through I blurt out “YEAH, I took LSD!”
And that was it right there. It was like the carpet got pulled right out and someone farted at the same time. The atmosphere totally changed! The recruiters face froze the look of happiness suddenly gone.
“How many times did you take it?” she asks hoping beyond hope for the right answer.
I pause and consider my situation. Clearly that was not the answer she’d wanted. I doubt if telling the truth is the best policy here, there is a voice that cautions me, but the unbridled enthusiasm of the moment takes over and I decide to be honest, fully. Once that I’ve decided that, I realize I have no idea how many times I dropped acid.
I smile and pause, trying to count the times as best I can. This takes some moments…
The fact that I am pausing here creates another visible ripple of anxiety in the recruiter.
After a few moments of reflection and reliving some crazy drug incidents, I realize that I have no clue how many times I took acid, just that it was a lot. At the same time I understand that she wants a concrete number, not a nebulous answer, so I am really trying to remember. Thinking over things it seems like 100 times is a nice clean estimate, then a few more incidents pop up in my memory and the idea occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, there is something some benefit to having been you know…extreme. So finally I decide to be as honest as I can. “About 150 times”.
And that’s the end there, the death, the air all comes out of the balloon…fluuuuughhhh-pfittt…splat. I start sensing that my Sea Org future is fading fast!
Honestly, at that moment I was expecting at the minimum some sort of acknowledgement from her, some “Wow, that’s awesome, dude!” or a nice pat on the back or at least SOME recognition of my achievements with LSD.
But no! The recruiter looks at me pityingly. She has one last trick in her play book…one last shot in the dark that might possibly save us all.
She asks me: “Are you SURE it was LSD you took?”
Am I sure it was LSD??? What????? Was she doubting my knowledge of what drugs I was taking? Did she think me so stupid as to take something that wasn’t even LSD? 150 times? I am affronted by the sheer idiocy of such a question, and the complete lack of respect it signifies.
YES, of course, it was LSD….sheesh!
I calm down, and start to explain about different types of acid, there’s Purple Haze and Windowpane and there are LSD tablets, acid sometimes comes on sugar cubes or you can get blotter sheets (you can get them with Mr. Natural or the Zig Zag Man on them).
I describe each, their different types of high and I speculated aloud what each may or may not be cut with. I gave, I thought at the time, a very clear description of how when you do GOOD acid, you see hallucinatory “trails” every time something moves. Trails are a sort of strobe light or stop motion effect. If a person moves their arm, you see a freeze frame of it, and then it also sort of swooshes by, leaving a trail flight… I mean, how cool is that?
I give a short rundown of the effects of other drugs, like cocaine, PCP, Quaaludes and speed, juxtaposing their effects with those of acid.
All in all I felt like I did a good job explaining it. Yes, I was certain that I had done LSD.
The poor woman looked completely crestfallen now, and sadly explained that I was not qualified to join the Sea Org of Scientology.
Groping for a solution, I briefly considered the plan of claiming that I hadn’t understood the question quite right, and that, No, I’d never, ever touched LSD, but quickly realized that I’d pretty much bolted the door shut, thrown away the key and burned all the bridges, as they were. And so, I left, disappointed.
Recruitment Day was a failure, I was out of the Sea Org before I’d even started!
2022 Andy Porter Photography Calendars are available now! 3 rainbows and a lighthouse! Get your copy here.
July — Maple Pass
January — Lone Tree
April – Lime Kiln Lighthouse
August – Twin Lakes
Never took LSD; never joined the Sea Org. My Vietnam buddy from 52 years ago highly recommended CDB for leg pains. It did work the first time. On the second dose it put me into serious hallucinations.
Very dangerous drugs even if they are legal and available.
Andy,
You were so lucky you did not go in. I got in just under the wire. The reason Hubbard did not want LSD cases on staff is he did a folder study of ex-staff and many had an LSD history so he did not want staff who were trouble from the start.
Thanks for the info which makes sense. People who were, let’s say, adventurous enough to experiment with LSD would probably be less likely to submit to regimentation and more likely to blow the sea org after spending time recruiting and training them. There are other psychedelics with similar effects as LSD but LSD was the one most commonly in use at the time so I guess he picked that one out and never did a revision and it stuck.
In the 60’s and 70’s most people who used a psychedelic like mescaline or mushrooms or whatever probably also did LSD. So statistically speaking by prohibiting LSD users from the sea org he also eliminated other users of strong psychedelics. Hubbard was right. The sea org recruiters are looking for that one in very few.
It would be useful if Geoff has more specific details about this since it’s the most obvious answer to the question “Why just LSD?”
Geoff, do you think LRH did rigorous research to rule out whether just as many people regarded as doing well on staff also had an LSD history? Or could he have been falling into his habit of sloppily confirming his own preconceptions and biases, and scapegoating?
Now, I could imagine that people who had done LSD might have been more likely to know that there was access to altered states and even seeming enlightenment, outside of Scientology, and thus might have been harder to control and more apt to blow.
Studies have shown that there seems to be no evidence of overall negative mental health impact, and even some hints of benefit, associated with the use of psychedelics. Any correlation between psychedelic use and existing or latent mental health issues is minimal, particularly in younger populations that only experimented with it recreationally, and the abuse of other substances (like the alcohol and prescription drugs Hubbard himself was prone to overindulging in) is just as indicative.
See, for example:
The link between use of psychedelic drugs and mental health problems
Ragnar Nesvåg1, Jørgen G Bramness2 and Eivind Ystrom1,3
> https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0269881115596156
Reading the term “dropped acid” made me reflect on my past in the early 1970’s. Anyone like Randy who had dropped acid over 100 times would have been called an “acid head”. Lol If you were in the company of an acid head it might be expected that they were “tripping out” on you but that was okay if they weren’t on a “bummer”. The degree of hallucination might have depended on the strength of the psychedelic chemical you took.
In the 1970’s I used LSD and/or mescaline or some other psychedelic chemical maybe a dozen times. They were interesting experiences from an observational point of view but it didn’t result in any “new paradigm of existence” as it did for some people. While I was in scn it didn’t make any sense to “study the mind” while using mind altering chemicals so for the six or seven years I was in I totally gave up psychedelics of any kind. Just common sense. Like Randy I wanted to become a top notch auditor.
In the 1970’s auditor training was streamlined. Learn the basic theory behind the “processes” and then go audit. Elron made most of his money by selling books, auditing and training and all of the DevT (developed and unneccessary traffic, basically useless bullshit added by DM) didn’t exist.
oops – Andy not Randy – I was tripping out on some past experiences
I never understood why Hubbard never figured out how to deal with that particular drug. No repeated purification rundowns, no drug rundown, no drug rundown for OTs could deal with it. Heroin, Meth, any number of psychedelics were no problem. But LSD taken at a Grateful Dead concert years ago completely stymied the guy.
Just as a guess maybe he figured only LSD was strong enough to put someone into a full blown trip into the Twilight Zone and when they got to OT3 they would just regard it as Elron on a bummer. haha
Another guess is that when LSD was first accidentally discovered in a laboratory for a while in the 1960’s when it wasn’t illegal the “Psychs” thought it might be used as some kind of treatment for various mental illnesses. Any chemical once used by those SPs would be a big red flag for “Dr. Hubbard”.
What you wrote regarding hallucinogen and drug experienced people recognizing OTIII (and also other Hubbard stuff…) as inherently “trippy” (other than just “crazy”) or as random shit churned out by an amphetamine-addled narcissist’s brain, is exactly what I think too. He might have been high on something else during writing that, like amphetamine, but that’s unimportant. Perhaps Hubbard had taken LSD once, or just listened very carefully to people who had done so, and put two and two together: “Yikes, I must avoid these dudes, they’d look through me in an instant.” For Hubbard, this was in any case not concern about their possible conclusion then after reading OTIII or listening to some lectures, that he must have taken some drug, that’s not the fatal secret there, but it’s about the inevitable invalidation (in his opinion, that is) of his grandiose “cosmic relevation” as basically just some random trip, while he requires that stuff to be taken dead serious, like about everything else in Scientology too.
Above, you were right too, to point out that by banning LSD users from at least the higher echelons, the “administration” of the cult, at that time that didn’t mean so much to oddly single out and demonize one particular drug, rather than people who most likely had taken a whole bunch of drugs, and might be controversial dipshits at heart by then. 🙂
I haven’t taken LSD, but weed, usually for creative purposes, and eventually you recognize stuff written on drugs (whichever ones then) or at the very least written by an author intensely reliving aspects and feelings and cognitions (and perhaps horrors) of their experiences. And that applies to professionally published works, as opposed to the more obvious case of, say, postings full of typos and unfinished sentences and whatever else might indicate drug use or mental illness (or both). Nay, the telltales are still there, and in a trippy work they usually are so even in scenes where nobody took any drug or has any other form of mind-altering or dramatic experience (telepathy, magic, religious epiphany, etc), it’s just something about the general style that pops out. And that applies to other media as well, such as actors in movies. Well, occasionally. 🙂
So yeah, Hubs, I might as well ask, “Why so serious?” 😀
tesseract – Thanks for the reply. Stoners or acid heads as “controversial dipshits at heart” made me laugh. LOL
They wouldn’t prove to be particularly good “Loyal Officers” from Hubbard’s point of view. LOL
Another thought is that when LSD came into common use scientific credence was given for awhile to the existence of “flashbacks” when people would unexpectedly go into an LSD hallucinatory state. Someone in the sea org going TypeIII (psychotic) would be problematic to say the least. As far as I know no other drug came with that description.
During the Vietnam War for a year or two (I think) men who had taken LSD were disqualified from the draft and military service for a similar reason. Later on that prohibition was rescinded.
The hippies knew that LSD would sometimes put a person on a very bad trip. Someone or a couple of people would sit with the person on a bummer until the drug wore off and they were okay. Hubbard probably wouldn’t have known that and eliminated LSD users from his recruitment pool. Too bad for him and lucky for people who evaded the sea org using LSD as an excuse.
Well, thank goodness that I avoided recruitment meetings and a stint in the Sea Org, because a friend handed me a piece of blotter paper and “try this. It’ll be fun” in the early 1970’s right before a New Riders of the Purple Sage concert. It was indeed fun.
Laughter – I got stoned and went to a concert which featured Santana. The opening act was Crosby, Stills and Nash right after Neil Young joined the group. Very “trippy” in the vernacular of the day.
Richard, I suspect LSD was used as a scapegoat when Hubbard’s processes caused psychotic breaks and other acute mental health crises in individuals. In Scientology’s heyday drug use history was probably ubiquitous among young recruits, and so it would have been easy to retrospectively “find” drug use as a cause, both so that the “tech” could be held blameless internally, and also so that cases of psychotic breakdowns could be swept under the rug with family or even authorities.
PeaceMaker – Yes. That’s another good reason but still speculative as to whether it was part of Elron’s thinking at the time he declared LSD was a prohibition to joining the sea org as are my and other speculations above. All we know for sure is that he laid down the law and to this day it’s followed.
The simplest explanation is what Geoff Levin posted above. Hubbard reviewed folders of ex staff members and decided that LSD users were more likely to become blown staff members so he didn’t want to waste time on them. There were plenty of other potential candidates back then.
No, he tossed people he was mad it into the RPF and looked at the folders and figured most of the foul ups were past takers of LSD. He then made the rule. By the early 80’s the inflow into scamology was so low and thus SO recruitment was in non-existence that someone either at SR. HCO Int or Exec Strata started a pilot S.O. LSD recruitment program. It was cancelled within about 12 months by CMO. By 1980 recruiting scamology members that were adults became almost impossible.
I would like to see more specific information, the exact “time, form, place and event” when the original order, however it was issued, prohibiting LSD users from joining the sea org. In the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s there were plenty of ex hippies and counter culture types in the ranks and worldwide participation was probably in the tens of thousands. I think it was in the 1970’s when Elron was ramping up his faux navy sea org to exercise more dictatorial control over the organization and “qualifications” became part of the picture.
A few years ago I was watching a video where somebody was discussing various cults. When he got around to scientology he noted that “Hubbard even had his own goddam navy.” Lol
It was close to 1970 and issued as a Flag ORder. My first sentence sans the “mad” part accurately summarizes Hubtard’s rational for banning LSD cases from the S.O.
He was ramping up his “Navy” in the late 60’s. He wound it down in the 70’s.
Geoff says Elron reviewed folders of ex (blown) staff members. Real says he looked at folders of people he had tossed into the RPF. He may have done both. Who knows? It’s essentially scn trivia except for people currently under pressure to join the sea org.
Real – regarding the 1970ish Flag Order – thanks, I got it. Any folders of ex staff members Elron reviewed were most probably those of sea org personnel and definitely those of RPFers.
P.S. I think that you and Geoff are saying the same thing except that Geoff didn’t say that the folders of the “ex staff members” Elron reviewed were those of sea org which threw me off.
Now that I’ve been thinking about LSD for three days it’s time to think about something else – Lol
I just checked and this topic is over five days old. The acid fried my sense of time. I’ll never make it to Whole Track Recall. . . . . . . . .(joke)
In celebration of the fortuitous circumstances resulting in your avoidance of a life of abject servitude, I offer this whimsical poem befitting the Chairman of the Bored.
Davy, Davy, tell me your bullshit do
I’m half crazy hearing the lies you spew
I pity those Sea Org members
Who suffer your agenda
You’d look so sweet ‘neath Bubba’s feet
In a prison cell built for two
That little ditty is very good.
Very romantic, I hope they become happy together. 🙂
Andy,
I thought you eventually got into the Sea Org, and were in Security, is that not true?
LSD was allowed to be petitioned, due to LRH’s 1982 advice/note to ED Int, saying that ED Int had the authority to change hiring qualifications at times when recruitment was bottled up and no one who was really competent and strongly desiring to be in Sea Og, were blocked by the LSD rule. So a number of LSD takers got approved by petition to join.
The LRH advice for the routing forms project also contained the “Hiring New Staff” routing form, and it tied in with the LRH advice to ED Int, allowing ED Int to effectively not be blocked by “arbitraries.”
There are several major Hubbard policies which allow circumventing some of Hubbard’s rules which act as arbitraries, and to modify qualifications from time to time, based on that.
In fact, one of the key key principles of the Class 8 course is the “arbitraries” short HCOB writing by Hubbard.
it takes some “strategic” coordination or petition, which is ED Int’s “hat” anyways, in alignment with LRH’s writings.
I thought you got into Sea Org, no?
Nope, never was in the Sea Org. Several other people named Porter (no relation to me) were in the SO in Los Angeles.
Andy, I really love your photography — the catch of the light and shadows, the ambience, the colours and particularly the perspectives.
Thank you! I am lucky to live in such a wonderful place.
Hubbard hated LSD because it cut into his income. I wish I had known about the trick of lying to Sea Org recruiters about taking it when I hadn’t. It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Later in life, the main reason I experimented with it is because Hubbard said not to. Even though the journey came to an end, it was a worthwhile journey.
Wonderful use of light and color in your photos Andy. They all look like that *one* shot of the day where everything just lines up perfectly.
I’ve never taken any LSD but I’ve met some interesting characters that have taken a lot. A few are still on another planet and may be living in the Galactic Confederacy. Perhaps that’s why LRH was so against LSD.
Lots of people say honesty is the best policy. It sure worked for you!
Andy,
Damned lucky escape is you ask me!
I must admit, LSD kept me from any chance or possibility of joining the SO. Who knows what I might have done in a weak moment of misplaced enthusiasm? I never had any true desire to join though, and I enjoyed telling recruiters I wasn’t qualified. I felt like I was getting away with something, like I’d beat the system. And I had a slightly veiled but snide attitude about it. Every time I talked to a recruiter, I knew I was invincible. And I took sardonic pleasure out of it as if I were saying, “LSD, nyah, nyah, nyah!.”
Most recruiters didn’t give up right away, holding on to some hope that there might be a loophole. But I didn’t care. I’d talk to them as long as they wanted; I knew I had the winning hand. And I had pat answers to the questions I knew they were going to ask:
Recruiter: “Are you sure it was LSD?”
Me: “After a few times, I was pretty sure.”
Recruiter: “How many times did you take it?”
Me: “I lost count after 20 or 30 times. I really can’t remember.”
I never got tired of watching a hapless, bottom-of-the-org-board recruiter go down in flames. This was the late seventies and early eighties, mind you. The church still had a few insouciant rogues and mavericks who were kick-ass Scientologists, both public and staff. Of course, DM couldn’t have that, and slowly purged the ranks of those who actually could make the organization work. Needless to say, it was never the same again.
Those are certainly beautiful pictures.
I cannot think of any better way to bring down Scientology aside from posting those pictures. They should result in the end of Scientology real soon. Shouldn’t they?
Mickey’s motto is, “Something can be done about it”. People may think the result of following this blug will somehow result in the end of Scientology.
Those beautiful pictures will surely be a big help in fighting the evils of the cult and lead to the end of Scientology.
Won’t they? Or will they be of no help at all? Like everything else about this blug there is nothing going on to end Scientology. It will be with us for many years to come and I cannot understand why Mickey would proclaim, “Something can be done about it. Mickey’s blug ain’t doing nothing about it. This cult will still be going strong long after Mickey is gone.
I cannot think of hardly anything Mickey has ever done to bring about the end of Scientology.
Leah certainly did a whole lot to try and bring it down. She spoke out loud and often. She wrote a book. She was the primary driving force behind the TV show. But what has Mickey done?
*SILENCE* *CRICKETS CHIRPING*
Pretty weak effort. They sure don’t make OSA trolls the way they used to. One must wonder if there are any professional-grade PR experts left in this flailing organization. I seriously doubt it. Who quals this crap anyway?
if Mike weren’t having an effect, you wouldn’t bother (or be told to) post here, would you? People come here and get informed which helps put the lid on the coffin of recruiting, and everyone from journalists to politicians’ staff quietly use it as a resource to inform themselves about scientology’s abuses — there is periodic confirmation of that.
Regardless, this blog is certainly making more of a splash in the world, than anything to do with scientology. According to Alexa.com:
mikerindersblog.org ranks:
#79,144
in global internet engagement
scientology.org ranks:
#138,788
in global internet engagement
davidmiscavige.org ranks:
#1,930,473
in global internet engagement
Scientology’s YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) – Social Blade [likely padded by paid views to create the appearance of more activity than there is; vastly higher views than subscribers is a clue]:
D TOTAL GRADE
40,981,218th SOCIAL BLADE RANK
48,312,973rd SUBSCRIBER RANK
69,185th VIDEO VIEWS RANK
3,752,179th COUNTRY RANK United States
144,290th NONPROFIT RANK
if you think hardly anyone visits here, then Scientology is really dead in comparison.
Well said Peacemaker.
To me this guy is just a low voltage ‘entity’ (he/she/it?) moving randomly around the web, just a cannon loose, trying to provoke to get some attention. To me he can’t even be a scnist. Less than that.
Tks, PeaceMaker for posting these ranks.
I immediately thought about it when seeing TruthFaker92&socks’ pathetic attempts trying to push Mike’s buttons. But then again, s/he may just try to comply with the Cob’s orders “To do something about Rinder” and/or is desperate to get the stats up and/or to get out of lower conditions.
I’m going to use it (the Internet ranks) as troll-repellent.
wedge talk, from a Xenu’s body-thetans “Wall of Fire”/”Fouth Dynamic Engram” and the five exorcism levels of OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
The world’s problems are the R6 bank in our body-thetans’ minds that leak into our mind once we are Clear.
Hubbard failed to do his own successful OT 7 Solo NOTs exorcism to rid himself of a final lingering body-thetan, so his own exorcism failed him, in the end
Scientologists do need to read the final pages from “Going Clear… ” and watch the documentary “Going Clear…”, to see how LRH’s mentality was despair and failure, at the end of his life. Reason to quit Scientokogy,
And quit being TeamXenu wedge volunteer third partying. Hail Xenu’s body-thetans in volume on you.
You must be absolutely desperate to get that third bean with your rice. Still posting sad pathetic attempts at trolling via the Hong Kong or Indian IP addresses or have you skipped to another country? Actually, you are beginning to remind me of another dip shit wanker that tried the same nonsense a couple of years ago before he was banned.
Hey truthtaker92. My wife and I are patron meritorious ias members. We are silver humanitarians at our former org. We’ve been out for over five years. You’ve been wronged and don’t know it yet.
Here it is the little loose cannon. Which then he writes but does not answer. His only purpose is really to provoke and hopefully have someone respond to him. He doesn’t give a damn about scn.
He is just a wandering troll seeking attention.
A loser who some time ago became aware of being that and is trying to save himself.
Dude I think it’s too late.
Dear T92,
Your remarks regarding Andy’s beautiful photos caused me to reflect on their therapeutic value. So, yes! If you posted any, or all, of these photos enlarged to 4X6 feet in the seccheck interrogation rooms they would go a long way in remedying the sins of your cherch.
As regards Mr Rinder and what he has done to remedy the sins of your cherch… he has presented specifics of human abuse by your cherch and attached specific policy/orders by Hubbard that created those abuses. He has been a sinner (as we all have) and come to the light of truth and personal honesty. Can you say the same for yourself.?
TruthTaker92
Please tell the readers of this blog more about the wonders of scientology and the demonstrable spiritual abilities you have gained from nuzzling COB’s…ooops, I mean…from studying the only technology capable of salvaging this sector of the universe!
I am already super-impressed with your highly intelligent, deeply probing, logical extemporization…Please,please…do share more of your uptone wisdom and bracing ethics presence…
Ah, such a satanic, er…oops, THETANIC palate cleanser…Yes! You go, you whole-track-bad-ass-entheta-smasher!
Hip, hip, fecal spray!
In praise of the Flubbard, The Fleet Admiral, and YOU, the Whole Track Fuckwit…Ramen!🤗
What a strange comment.
Andy has written the classic
I agree. I’m sure nobody here recommends anyone take LSD but in reading Andy’s story it’s pretty damn funny!
My X is still in the SO 40+ years.
He told me several times how he got in by the recruiter figuring out he’d taken angel dust – not LSD like he thought. (1980?)
He knows very well what he took.
And look where that lie got him.
He is disconnected from me even though we share children and grandchildren.
He is 4 years younger then me yet uses an oxygen tank for CPOD.
I’m 69 and relatively healthy and I’m quite sure happier. At least I’m no longer living with lies or liers.
We divorced in 2008.
I left all traces of any remaining infatuation with LRH when I read the Affirmations 2016.
Live with the truth. Poor guy must cave himself in every time he reads TWTH.
Thanks for the story.
Good for you Cece on getting out and living a good live on the outside. Sorry your ex is on oxygen. Everyone smokes in the SO, chain smokes. When I was new in Scn I asked why everyone on staff smoked? They said it was hard work clearing the planet and was stressful and smoking helped with the stress. But it sure causes more stress later on in life.
What a great story.
I burst out laughing when I read about your enthusiastic and detailed
extemporization on the varieties of LSD shared with the Sea Org recruiter!
Love your photography, too.
Its a bit of a stretch to think about Scientology where any of its funny, but some of the things that happened were just so insane that they cant help but make you laugh.
Andy, I was a NOTS Auditor in the Universe Corps from 1990-97 and it was the best job I had in my 25 years, I got to get the hell out of PAC/ LA area, I got to live in our own Apartment (later house), got away from the most part the screaming messengers and Management, Keep in mind My still then Ex- SO wife and I had a baby. Eventually it all ended but it was a fun ride while it lasted.
Having said that you were lucky you never got recruited and are very blessed.
Seldom do street drugs save a life, but they did in this instance. You dodged a bullet there Andy.
I was 15 the first time I did acid. My parents had been in the sea org and I knew for a fact I would be recruited and urged by my parents to join. So my brother and I and some friends went to Disneyland and dropped a few hits. Turned out I really enjoyed it and did a lot more after that. Kept me out of the sea org!
Backhandedly good on you for figuring out a solid excuse to avoid Sea Org.
Beautiful photos!!!!!
Andy, your photography is something to aspire to. What inspiration!
I joined the Sea Org twice (the second time under an amnesty). I never took LSD but “Pot Head” sat at the top of my resume for two years. If the Sea Org recruiter had asked further about my drug adventures, she might have suspected that a bit of that pot might have been acid tinged. Once, after smoking a joint, I saw a 16 foot tall, 25 foot long cat in a pasture as I drove by. Another time ( again, behind the wheel), I swear I saw a man in a wheelchair under a flashing yellow light at a lonely, rural intersection. Those experiences prompted me to never, ever do any drugs stronger than pot.
I escaped Scientology in 2014, after 37 years. I’m so happy to no longer have anything to do with that cult and will say so to anyone who will listen.
In closing, I would like to wish a “Merry Christmas Implant” (courtesy Tony Ortega) to the Sea Org members and those at OSA who follow this blog. That includes the Scientologist who has been calling me, making crank calls from a “Restricted” number. Sorry I missed your last call!
I kinda miss the ‘Randy Smith’ that used to regularly phone. I never had to explain the nomenclature. I asked him to stop phoning unless he told me his real name about 3 times and he did stop. Yes, was likley an OSA worm.
There is a real Randy Smith who was on staff at an org and then got out of Scn and is an Indie now.
Cece,
Thanks for sharing your adventures with “Randy Smith.”
This blog is excellent. Today, it even came with its own floor show:
“TruthTaker92 & the Cricketeers.”
Admission didn’t cost anymore than usual!
Great Post Andy.
Personally I used to tell recruiters that I had taken LSD to avoid being press ganged for the sea org.
And, no, I never have taken it……..
The SO is so desperate for recruits that now they have figured out all sorts of ways to get around the LDS thing an get people in. Mostly it is “you took a different drug and only thought it was LSD.”
Yes, they were doing that back in the early 90’s