The sixth installment of the first draft of a novel written by our old friend Terra Cognita. For the next little while it is our Sunday Serial.
Terra welcomes all suggestions and feedback — this is draft — you can note them in the comments.
Chapter 31
Roxy and I were sitting in a sauna in the basement of the same building that housed the big course room. We sat facing each other, each leaning back on opposite walls. Rivulets of sweat ran down our bodies. I wore an old pair of gym shorts; Roxy word a red bikini. I looked like I’d just finished a race. Roxy looked like a Santa Barbara lifeguard. Her tight little body more than made up for the lack of tan. I couldn’t help staring.
“When you’re not keeping tabs on wayward boys, what’s your actual post?” I asked.
“I’m a page.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“Technically we’re messengers but in reality we do anything our seniors order us to do.”
“Like watch over guys like me.”
“Exactly.”
“Just young people are pages, right?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
A rivulet of sweat ran down from between her breasts to the top of her bikini bottoms.
“And what about when you get older?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I might become an auditor. Or a supervisor. Hopefully something to do with tech.”
“As opposed to something administrative, right?”
“I’m more into just helping people. Things like that.”
I glanced at the thermometer beside the door. One-o-eight.
“So why are you a page then? Why don’t you just become an auditor?” I asked.
“It doesn’t work like that. You can’t just walk away from your post and do something else.”
“But why not? Nobody’s forcing you to be a page.”
“It’s like any other business. You can’t just do whatever you like. Whenever you want. You gotta pay your dues.”
“So you couldn’t just tell your senior you were tired of being a page and wanted to be an auditor?”
Roxy snickered and shook her head. Beads of sweat flew off her chin. The electric heater clicked on in the corner sending waves of heat through the sauna.
“If you weren’t in the SO, what would you do?” I asked.
“But I am in the SO.”
“But if you weren’t. And you could do anything you wanted. What would you do?”
“Probably go to college and get a teaching credential. Probably teach high school.”
“What subject?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe English. I like words and language and reading and things like that.”
“You actually have time to read?”
“Not much but I usually get in a few pages before I go to sleep every night.”
“What are you reading now?”
“Geeze, don’t you get tire of asking questions?”
This time I shrugged. “Seeing as how we’re gonna be in this box for a long time, might as well get to know my partner.”
Roxy smiled. The small gap between her top front teeth made her look younger and innocent.
“My turn,” she said. “What are you gonna do with your life?”
“That is the million dollar question. And one the reasons I got into Scientology.”
“LRH says a person knows what he wants to be in life when he’s two years old.”
“Yeah, well, apparently not everybody.”
“Maybe you do, but just don’t remember. With a little auditing, maybe you would.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“Then you just gotta look harder.” She glanced toward the door. “Or maybe you’re just scared to make a decision.”
Maybe she was right. I followed her gaze to the door. “One step at a time,” I said.
Natter, or speaking poorly of another—was considered an overt. I couldn’t help myself. “So the D of T, Mary Beth Carlson…damn, she sure went off on me earlier.”
“Not like you didn’t provoke her,” Roxy said.
“All I said was that I didn’t want to start things before I made a couple of phone calls. That was all. It wasn’t like I was questioning her integrity or anything like that. Like I’ve never seen anyone yell and scream like that. Ever.”
“You obviously haven’t been in the Sea Org.”
“Happens all the time here does it?”
“All the time. But you get used to it.”
“I wouldn’t. No way.”
“No, you would. You learn to just roll with it.”
“But it’s so the opposite of everything LRH wrote about. Not that I’ve studied all that much of his, but flying off the handle like she did is totally the opposite of what the TRs are all about. And I was looking on the Grade Chart the other day and noticed that the EP for Grade Zero had to do with being able to comfortably communicate with anyone on any subject.”
EP was short for end phenomenon, and was what every person was supposed to achieve at the end of a course or auditing level.
“You just pushed her buttons,” Roxy said.
“But Scientologists are supposed to be able to control themselves and not let their buttons get pushed. Like that’s what bullbaiting is all about.”
One of the training routines involved a drill in which people were taught not to react to anything your twin said. For instance, they would yell obscenities at you and you were supposed to just sit there comfortably and confront them. Without moving. Without saying anything. Without thinking they were an asshole.
Roxy swung her legs off the bench and stood up. “We’ve been in here twenty minutes. Let’s take a break. I’m gonna rinse off.”
“I’ll join you.”
She cocked her head and looked at me incredulously. “Ah…I’m taking a shower.”
“I assume you’ll still be wearing your bathing suit. Like just rinsing off, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Then what’s the big deal. It’s not like I haven’t seen all there is to see.” Which wasn’t altogether true.
“I’m surprised a place like this doesn’t have boys and girls bathrooms,” I added.
Then again, if they wanted to hold down expenses…
Roxy walked over to the door to the bathroom and went inside. I followed. She stepped inside the tiny shower stall. So did I. I would have bet a couple of eternities she’d never showered with a boy before. With or without bathing suits.
I stood with my back against the wall while Roxy stood under the cool water—until I couldn’t take it anymore and pressed my front to her back. She shuddered at the touch but otherwise remained where she was. I put my hands around her waist…because I didn’t know where else to put them. And the stall was tiny. And I didn’t want to fall back through the glass door. Or something like that.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Trying to cool off under the water. Just like you.” A bar of soap sat in an inset on the side of the stall. “I’ll wash your back,” I said.
She didn’t say “go ahead,” but she didn’t say “no.” I picked up the bar and worked up a lather, returned it to its dish, and put my hands on her shoulders. And slowly rubbed my hands up and down her back. I spent most of my time on her shoulder muscles. I imagined untying the bow holding together her bikini top and moving my hands around her torso. Maybe she was imagining the same thing.
I lathered up my hands again before starting on her arms. First the right. And then the left. Up and down. Making sure to knead the muscles above and below her elbows. I couldn’t see the expression on her face. I felt like biting the back of her neck.
She took a deep breath and turned around. “Okay, I’ve cooled off enough. We need to get back in the box.” Our faces were inches apart. Her eyebrows were a few shades darker than her hair.
“What about the rest of your body?” I asked. Like the front part.
“I’m good,” she said.
Making sure to avoid touching too much of me, she stepped out of the shower and walked back to the sauna. So much for returning the favor.
Chapter 32
Dinner that evening was as frenetic as breakfast. Eating wasn’t a time to relax and converse with friends, but a time to scarf down as much food as possible before rushing back to post. Or in our case, the Survival Rundown—SRD for short.
The rundown was collection of processes with the purpose of getting a person more into present time. Being in present time—PT for short—was a big deal in Scientology. Almost like a Holy Grail. Being in PT meant being focused on what was happening right in front you, like in the here and now, as opposed to thinking about stuff in your head—especially stuff hanging you up. Crazy people were said to be stuck in past incidents, far from being in PT.
Since Roxy and I were twined-up, we took turns running processes on each other. These processes could run anywhere from minutes to days. You knew you were done with a process when you felt more in PT…or something like that.
The first day or two would consist of studying how to run the processes on each other so that first night in the course room we didn’t actually run anything; we just studied and practiced how things would go. Half the time, my mind was back in Santa Barbara.
My dad wasn’t the meddlesome type. I came and went as I pleased without telling him what I was doing or when I’d be back. And he didn’t ask. Commonly, I’d see him was when I was scrounging food in the kitchen. I’d stopped formally dining with him and my brothers a year ago so it wasn’t unusual that we could go days without seeing each other. That said, I worried he’d begin to wonder where I was. And what I was doing. And why the police were snooping around the Little House.
I assumed Bill had come home and found his wife, Joan, lying in the bathtub and called the police. And that she was now encased inside some stainless steel drawer at the morgue. If the coroner wasn’t too busy with more pressing death and mayhem, he might have already established the cause of death. Time and place of death was another story.
From the ten million cop shows I’d watched on TV, I knew that forensic science had come a long way. And that they could tell when dead bodies had been moved from one location to another. Something to do with the way the blood settled in the body, I thought.
It wasn’t a secret that Joan had gone to the Org to do the Purif that morning. That much was the truth. Would the coroner and/or police believe Doug and Brenda testimony that, shortly after she’d arrived, she’d felt sick and went home? Not if the forensic evidence said otherwise.
A rookie detective could have discovered in a heartbeat that Joan and I had been “twins” on the Purif. He would have been a fool not to have questioned me. For the thousandth time, I pictured him knocking on the front door to the Little House. And once he detected I wasn’t home, he would go around to the main house to question my dad and brothers as to my whereabouts.
The longer I avoided Santa Barbara, the deeper my hole. Running away had been the epitome of stupidity. Like my imaginary detective was supposed to believe that Joan’s death and my disappearance was one big coincidence?
Who had hatched this dumb-ass plan of hiding out in Hemet at Int Base? And why had I gone along with it? So what if I’d had to deal with an unsympathetic press. Better than getting arrested for murder and thrown in jail.
At ten o’clock that evening, the course Sup—supervisor—said, “That’s it. End of course.” Roxy and I threw our materials on one of the shelves reserved for student shit, and along with the five other students, went home for the night. I grabbed a pen and a couple of sheets of paper on the way out.
Back in our room, I set the pen and paper on the dresser and turned to Roxy. “Okay, let’s write this CSW.”
She nodded and said, “In the upper left corner write your name with a line over it. Then on top of the line write the routing.”
“The routing?”
“Like who’s it going to—who’s gonna read it. The first person would be the D of T. Then the Technical Secretary. Then the MAA.”
“Do all these people need to approve it? Like if one of em says ‘no,’ I’m screwed?”
“If one of em says no it just means we need to tweak the CSW. Like maybe they need a little more information to make a decision.”
I shook my head. Fuck that. I was making those phone calls.
“Write ‘CSW’ at the top of the page,” Roxy said. “In the middle.”
I did. In big, bold letters.
“Now write ‘Situation,’ colon.”
I did.
“Now write out what the situation is.”
“Like my twin died back in Santa Barbara and I was whisked away to this place without telling my dad or friends or work where I was going and when I’d be back? Like write that?”
“No. Just write that you need to call your dad and boss at work.”
I did. “Now what?”
“New paragraph. Write ‘Data,’ colon.”
I did. Followed by five long paragraphs explaining what had happened and what would happen if I didn’t make these phone calls. Roxy watched over my shoulder.
“Now write, ‘Solution,’ colon,” she said.
I did.
“I presume the solution is, ‘I call my dad and Starbucks back in Santa Barbara.’ Simple as that.”
“Sounds good. Then sign it, ‘This is OK,’ and then your name, and finally at the bottom, write ‘Approved,’ followed by a line for a signature, and ‘Not approved,’ with another line after it.”
“This thing better be approved. I’m just saying.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Easy for you to say. It’s not your butt on the line.”
I finished the CSW and said, “I’m gonna drop this off at Mary Beth’s office. And then maybe go for a walk.”
“You don’t have to do it now. She’s not even there. Wait until tomorrow.”
I felt edgy from writing the fuckin thing. And was hungry. No way was I just gonna lay down and go to sleep. “You don’t have to come,” I said.
“Just wait. You don’t have to…”
“No. I’m going. Now.”
Roxy let out a long breath and shook her head. “Shit. Then let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 33
Just enough light shinned through the window of Mary Beth’s office to see where I was going. I placed my CSW in the middle of her desk.
“Let’s go take that walk now,” I said to Roxy. Standing guard in the hallway.
“There’s a curfew. We can’t.”
We’d been over this the night before. “Maybe there’s a curfew for you but I’m not a Sea Org member,” I said. “I can come and go as I please.”
“No, you can’t. While you’re here, you’ll abide by our rules.”
“Our rules? Like you agree with this curfew thing? Because I sure don’t.”
“It’s not a matter whether I agree or don’t agree. The rules are the rules. They’re for our own good.”
“And I’m just saying, they aren’t my rules. So I’m going for this walk and you can come or you can stay. If you gotta report me; report me. Do whatever you want.” I wanted her to come with me.
“Fuck! You can be such…an asshole.”
I brushed by her on the way out the door.
The desert had cooled down just right for a late night walk. I hadn’t noticed all the frogs and crickets the night before. Maybe it’d been their day off. The air smelled like a combination of sage and cinnamon and I could tell Roxy was pissed.
“Where the fuck we going?” she muttered.
“Just follow me,” I muttered back.
I headed toward the sound of sprinklers in the distance. Judging by the moon rising over the horizon, we were heading east. We passed two basketball courts and a row of four beach volleyball courts before reaching fields of grass stretching away into the night. I crouched down to get a better look at the manicured lawn.
“Damn, this place has a golf course,” I said.
Roxy didn’t confirm or deny my keen deduction.
I took off my shoes. “I like walking on wet grass. Barefoot. Besides, you don’t want to get your shoes all wet.”
Roxy shook her head and slipped off her black, Sea Org issues.
A minute later the sprinkles switched off and I took off down the closest fairway. Forty or fifty yards ahead of us, some kind of animal scurried across the lawn. Might have been a raccoon or a possum. Could have been a bobcat or a giant rat. Spotting wildlife was always bonus. By the time we reached the flag in the middle of the green the animal was long gone.
“Love walking on golf courses at night,” I said.
Roxy didn’t say anything but she did nod. Seduced by the night!
We sat down on a bench at the end of the course to let our feet dry before putting our shoes back on. The smell of sage and cinnamon was stronger and the stars way brighter than in Santa Barbara. I wondered how the animals dealt with the perimeter fence twenty yards to the south. Maybe they’d pooled their money and bought a pair of bolt cutters. Or just went old school and burrowed underneath it.
“You gotta admit, it is kinda cool out here,” I said. “Sitting under the stars. Out here in the desert. Listening to the frogs and crickets. Just the two of us. Smell the chaparral?”
Roxy shrugged. She was coming around.
Something hooted or cooed from somewhere behind us. “Probably the same bird we heard last night,” I said.
She shrugged again.
“Probably caught a mouse or something,” I added.
“Probably Base security signaling they’ve located us.”
“Probably throw us in jail. Or worse, in some old dungeon. Where nobody will ever find us. We’ll be lucky to last the month. Probably die of the plague. Or scurvy, or whatever Medieval prisoners used to die of while locked away in dungeons.”
“Funny.”
The moon had widened after cresting the far hills, providing just the right amount of light. Enough so that I could see Roxy sitting next to me and where I was going when walking the grounds, but not so much that it highlighted imperfections. Like the small zit just to the left of Roxy’s chin. On an otherwise perfect complexion.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “I feel totally in PT sitting out here. Like way more than I could in a course room. Know what I mean?” Doing the SRD versus sitting out here. No comparison.
Roxy started to put on her shoes. I grabbed one of her hands.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I turned her palm upward. “Reading your fortune.”
“Kinda lame, don’t you think?”
I smiled. Totally lame.
She grinned. Faintly. I ran a finger along one of the lines extending across the top of her palm.
“Long life,” I said.
“As if you’d tell me if I was gonna die tomorrow. I’m sure you tell all your girlfriends they’re gonna live a long life.”
“I would never do that—lie to them, that is.”
Her smiled widened. I ran my finger down another line. “Romance,” I said.
“What about it?”
“I see it in your future.”
“So not before I die, right?”
“No. Soon. Like really soon.”
“No shit.”
“You doubt my words?” I pulled her hand a couple of inches closer.
She glanced down at the hand and then into my eyes. I ran my thumb around the soft middle of her palm. She took a deep breath. And then another. I took a couple, myself. Our faces moved closer until they were inches apart.
As if she’d been shocked, she jerked back and said, “No.”
“No?” I held her hand tight.
“We can’t do this.”
“Despite what your palm says?”
She nodded.
I really wanted to kiss her. Really, really a lot. So I told her so.
She glanced around the grounds before finally saying, “This isn’t right.”
“But what could be more natural?” I said.
“It’s not a matter what’s natural or not. I’m in the SO. And you’re not. I have my rules. You have yours. We can’t…do anything.”
“Nobody would have to know.”
She snorted. “This is Scientology.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” I followed her gaze down to her hand. The one which I hadn’t relinquished. I turned it over and brought it up my lips. She didn’t resist. At first. Then she pulled back. Not only the hand I was holding—and kissing—but the rest of her.
She stood up and turned away and shook her head. “We’re not doing this.”
Moonlight reflected off one side of her face. The good side without the zit. I thought she looked fuckin beautiful. I wanted to take her in my arms and run my hands over the rest of her. I stepped up behind her and began to knead her shoulders. She said, “No,” and stepped away just before I could kiss her on the back of the neck.
I nodded and stuffed my hands in my pocket.
“We should get back,” she said.
We should have been making out on the bench.
“Let’s go back along the fence,” I said.
“No. We should stick to the paths.”
“You can if you want. I want to check out the fence.”
“It’s just a fence.”
“True. But I want to see where it goes.” And if the razor wire extended its whole length. And if there weren’t tunnels where animals had burrowed under it. I turned and took off through the low brush. Roxy could come with me. Or not. I stopped a minute later and rested my hands on the chain link.
Roxy pulled up beside me. “Okay. We’re here. And it’s a fence alright. Satisfied?”
The bottom of the fence extended into the hard ground. To what depth, I had no idea. Thick coils of razor wire corkscrewed along the top.
“Doesn’t look like there’s much on the other side,” I said. “Low brush and desert. That’s about it.” Except for the worn path running its length for security patrols. I spied a light shining our way a hundred yards up the fence line.
“Looks like a flashlight,” I said. “Security patrol, most likely. Hopefully they’re not looking for us specifically.” I wondered if hidden motion detectors at alerted our captors.
“Oh fuck,” Roxy said.
“We should hide.”
I grabbed her hand and we took off back toward the golf course. We didn’t stop to take off our shoes when we reached the grass, but raced toward a big depression on the other side of the fairway. “Sand trap,” I said.
We jumped into the pit. The sand was dry and slightly warm. We crawled back and poked our heads over the top. Whether because she was scared or because she felt responsible for me and didn’t want to let me out of her sight, Roxy scooted over until her shoulder touched mine.
The light had reached the spot where we’d stopped at the fence. I wondered if the guy could tell we’d been there. Like he could see fresh footprints on the path and could tell that hands had rested on the fence. A good tracker could have traced our steps right to our little hiding place. But the light kept on moving and didn’t turn our way.
Escaping authorities was always an adrenalin rush. Especially in the middle of the night with the all the shadows and muffled sounds and lessened clarity. And all the ghosts running around. I put an arm over Roxy.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
She didn’t move. I didn’t move. The light continued eastward. Crickets, frogs, and Roxy breathing…in and out. Those were the three things I heard. Dry sand, wet grass, and a girl lying next to me. Those were what I smelled. I turned my head and kissed her just below her ear. Would have preferred her lips put they were pointed in the wrong direction.
“No,” she muttered.
So I kissed her again, this time on the ear—like a total, sexist, male chauvinist pig asshole. Never in a million years would I have gone any further without her consent, but then and there, I just couldn’t help myself. I was almost surprised when she didn’t pull away. I brushed back her hair and kissed her on the ear again.
“Oh god,” she said.
I wasn’t sure if she meant, “Oh god; that feels so incredible. Don’t stop,” or “Oh god; you’re a total, sexist, male chauvinist pig asshole.” But she didn’t pull away and so I went with the first inference and keep my lips on her ear.
Two “oh my god’s” later, she rolled over on her side and put her hands on my chest. “We’re not doing this,” she said. “We can’t.”
Her lips were inches from mine. I muttered, “Fuck,” and rolled over on my back. Roxy rolled over on hers. The only time I’d seen more stars was in the planetarium at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. I didn’t know one constellation from another but was sure some snarky Greek god was smiling down on me and shaking his head.
“We should get going before he comes back our way,” Roxy said. No doubt referring to flashlight man.
After seeing the coast was clear, we climbed out of the sand trap and started jogging up the fairway. Or at least Roxy started jogging. I would have preferred walking. Strolling, actually. So as not to abandon her, I matched her gait back to our dorm. I wasn’t a complete pig asshole.
Chapter 34
At ten thirty the next morning, Roxy and I were sitting in the sauna roasting our asses off. The thermometer read one-ten and our bodies glistened with sweat. I wore my ratty-ass old gym shorts. Roxy wore her hot red bikini. I couldn’t help staring.
“So…how long am I supposed to wait for a response on my CSW?” I asked.
“It takes as long as it takes,” Roxy replied.
“It’s not like it’s all that complicated.”
“Takes as long as it takes,” she repeated.
“Well, it just better not take too long or I’m taking matters into my own hands.”
Roxy shook her head.
I said, “I’ll make the calls with or without approval.”
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the warm wood.
I asked, “Want to take a shower? Cool off a bit.” Images of the day before stood out in my mind. While she mulled over my invitation, I fantasized pressing up against her in the shower. And then I thought of other shit.
No doubt, friends, family—and the police—were starting to wonder where I was. Would Doug and Brenda reveal to the authorities my current whereabouts? Or would they say they didn’t know? Would the cops apply pressure? Force Doug or Brenda, or whoever else might know, to cough-up my location? Should I have expected a visit from a squadron of sheriffs?
I imagined my dad growing concerned he hadn’t seen me in a few days and calling Dev.
“Have you seen Rick?” Dad would ask.
“Not for the last few days,” Dev would answer.
“Any idea where he might be?”
“You might try calling the Scientology center downtown.”
“Scientology?”
“He didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Tell me what exactly?”
“Ah…that he was doing courses there…”
CSW or not, I had to call Dad and Dev.
“I think it might be better if we took separate showers,” Roxy said, leaning forward and swiveling her legs off the upper bench.
“But not as fun,” I said. “Nor as eco-friendly. I’m all about saving water.”
“Wait until I’m done.”
“I don’t think I should.”
“Fuck, Rick. Just do as I say. A few more gallons isn’t gonna make any fuckin difference to the state of the world.”
Considering the grounds and golf course, the staff at Int Base didn’t think so, either.
She stepped down and walked out of the sauna. She didn’t look back over her shoulder invitingly. I leaned back and closed my eyes.
By the time Roxy and I started back on our SRD after lunch, I still hadn’t received a reply to my CSW. Approved or not, I vowed to make my calls that night after everyone had gone to bed. The night before I’d seen what looked like a land-line phone on Mary Beth’s desk.
“Hey,” Roxy said, “try to stay with me. You look like you’re spacing-out.”
She was in the middle of a drill which involved shouting as loud as she could at an ashtray resting on a chair. “Stand up!” she shouted at the ashtray. And then, “Sit down!” The drill was supposed to improve one’s intention. Like if a person had strong enough intention they could make the ashtray rise up without a pair of hands assisting it. I was the coach while Roxy maneuvered the ashtray up and down.
“Has anyone in the whole history of Scientology ever made the ashtray rise without using their hands,” I asked.
“That’s not the point,” Roxy replied.
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is to show that beings can make things happen with intention.”
“But we make things happen every second of our whole lives. Lifting up an ashtray is just about the easiest thing I’ll have to do all day—if you don’t count breathing.”
“A lot of times with stuff like this, the end phenomena are unanticipated. It kinda sneaks up on you.”
I shrugged. Maybe; maybe not. “The purpose of the SRD is mostly to get people more into present time—PT, right? But what if you already feel like you’re in PT?”
“Everything in life isn’t black or white. Everything is on a gradient. And some people are more in PT than others. So the SRD gets people more into PT.”
“Well…it seems to me that being in PT is like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. There is no gradient.”
Carlos, our supervisor, came over and asked what we were doing. Roxy told him I had some questions about the drill. Carlos asked if I had an MU—a misunderstood word. In the world of Scientology, there was no greater cause for not fully understanding Hubbard’s tech than not knowing the full definition of all his words. I looked up at Carlos and shrugged. He told Roxy to check me out on the materials. Which entailed her asking me for the definitions of random words from the text of the drill. If a person hesitated, or didn’t define a word to the satisfaction of his twin, he had to look it up in a dictionary and clear all the definitions. If he encountered a word in any of the definitions he didn’t fully understand, he was required to clear those, too. Students could get involved in long chains of MUs that took hours to define.
If someone didn’t understand something about which Hubbard had written or lectured, it was assumed the person had an MU. It never had anything to do with Hubbard. He was never wrong. Never. Ever. Instead of arguing the point, I went with the flow and allowed Roxy to “word clear” me. Apparently I wasn’t all that great on defining words—at least to her satisfaction—because by the time Carlos called a break for dinner we were still looking up words.
Chapter 35
Roxy and I went back to our room after course. I was sick of looking up words. We were lying on our respective beds staring up at the ceiling, thinking our respective thoughts. Mine had to do with calling Dev and Dad. And how Roxy would react when she saw I wasn’t waiting for approval. Except for going to the bathroom, she’d stuck with me ever since she’d been assigned as my caretaker. I didn’t think ditching her would work. She was a light sleeper.
“I’m calling my dad tonight,” I said.
“Your CSW hasn’t been approved,” she replied.
“A guy doesn’t need a CSW to communicate with his dad. Think about it. It’s totally insane that a kid should need permission to talk with his parents.”
Roxy didn’t reply.
“So I’m gonna call him,” I continued. “And you can either come with me or not.”
Still no reply.
“I’m gonna wait another hour until everyone’s asleep,” I said. “There’s a phone in Mary Beth’s office. A landline.”
“This is not okay.”
“No. It’s totally okay. Nothing’s more natural than a boy calling his dad. I’m sorry Roxy, but in the outside world—the real world—kids call their parents whenever they want. They don’t need permission. In fact, parents encourage their kids to call them. They buy em cell phones by the time they reach junior high school. You gotta understand how ridiculous this whole CSW thing is. I’m sorry you can’t see it now…but you will one of these days.”
Hopefully, sooner than later.
“I can’t…I just can’t…let you do it.”
“You gonna stop me?”
“If I have to.”
“How? You gonna tie me to the bed? Come on Roxy. That’s not gonna happen.”
Not without a team of burly dudes.
“You gotta know that preventing me from talking with my dad just isn’t right,” I said. “On so many different levels. It’s just not right. Not even close to being right.”
I rolled over on my side. Roxy didn’t.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll sneak out when you’re asleep. That way you can say you didn’t know what I was doing. They can’t expect you to stay awake all night keeping an eye on me.”
“Yeah. They can,” she said. “And besides, I’d have this withhold. Which I would eventually have to disclose. And which would probably get me booted to the RPF.”
The RPF stood for Rehabilitation Projects Force and was where bad Sea Org members were sent for rehabilitation.
“Well…it’s your decision…but I’m going,” I said.
Neither of us said anymore until I rose from my bed an hour later.
The corridors were empty. Except for a few dim lights at either end, the lights had been turned off. Mary Beth’s office door was unlocked. I walked in and sat down at her desk. Roxy sat down across from me. I didn’t get a regular dial tone when I picked up the phone. In fact, I didn’t get any dial tone at all. Shit.
Then I remembered that to call out at some hotels you had to dial “nine” first. A middle-aged voice picked up when I hit the button. “HCO,” it said.
“Ah…hello,” I said. “I need to make a phone call.”
“Who am I speaking with?”
“Rick.”
“Rick who?”
“Rick Lee.”
“And your post is…?”
“I’m not a staff member. I’m just visiting.”
“Just visiting?”
“It’s a long story. I just need to call my dad.”
“Do you have authorization?”
“I’m calling my dad, not the president.”
I heard clicks in the background, as if the HCO guy was pressing other buttons. Like alerting security. Or locking down the base. I expected to hear an air raid siren any second.
“So, you gonna let me make the call?” I asked.
“Sorry, you don’t have permission,” he answered.
“I don’t need permission. We’re talking about a phone call to my dad.”
The guy was starting to piss me off. Roxy must have heard the change in my tone.
“Let’s just go,” she said.
“You still there?” I asked into the phone.
“Still here.”
“So please do whatever you have to do to allow me to make this call.”
“Sorry. No permission. No phone call.”
“Fuck you.”
Before I could say anything else or slam down the receiver, three security men burst in the room. I could tell they’d been running.
The oldest of the three looked about thirty-five despite the gray streaks in his hair. “Put down the phone and step away from the desk,” he said. As if an actor in some kind of B movie.
I flipped him the bird.
Number two, short-blonde-haired-security-guy ran over and yanked the phone out of my hands. Number three stood in the doorway with his arms crossed.
“You’re in big trouble, mister,” number one said.
“For trying to call my dad? What you gonna do? Call the sheriff? Throw me in jail? You guys are fuckin crazy.”
“Come with us.”
“Fuck you.”
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“As if that isn’t the biggest fuckin cliché I’ve heard all day.”
Thing One glanced at Thing Two. One circled the desk from the left. Two circled from the right.
“Okay, let’s go,” Thing One said.
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and said, “Fuck you. I’m leaving this whole fuckin compound.”
“No. You’re coming with us.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Don’t make this any harder on yourself. Just come with us. We’re not gonna hurt you. The MAA just wants to talk to you.”
“In the middle of the night? I’ll talk with him in the morning.” Technically, it already was.
“He’s been notified. He’ll speak with you now.”
“Because I’ve been such a bad boy? Trying to call my dad? Oh my god! The horrors!”
“Let’s go.”
“Come on, Rick,” Roxy said. “Let’s just do what they say.”
“Just so you all know, I’m under no obligation to see or talk to anybody.”
“Nobody’s saying otherwise. But it can’t hurt to at least talk with the MAA. You never know…maybe he’ll even approve your CSW.”
And maybe Elvis would jump up on the desk and start singing and swiveling his hips.
Roxy walked around the desk and took my hand. “Come on. Let’s just see what he has to say.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, as I followed her out the door.
Chapter 36
The gunmetal gray desk and three chairs took up ninety percent of the MAA’s tiny office. He sat on the side of the desk with his back to the door. Roxy and I sat on the other. No way was the guy old enough to have ordered a drink legally. He looked about the same age as Roxy.
He introduced himself as, Guy Sephardic. He already knew the names of the other two people in the room.
“Sorry to wake you,” I said. “This could have easily waited, you know.”
Guy smiled. “Speed of particle flow equals power.”
I assumed this was a quote from LRH. “Which means…”
“Better to get things done quickly. Not put em off.”
I shrugged while Guy pretended to read a paper on his desk. No doubt a “Knowledge Report” having to do with me and crimes.
“You broke into Mr. Carlson’s office. The Director of Training. Attempted to make an unauthorized phone call.”
In the Sea Org, all officers were addressed as “Mister,” men and women alike.
“That about sums it up,” I said. “Except for two things.”
“Which are?”
“Number one, I didn’t break into the office. It was open. And number two, I don’t need authorization to call my dad.”
“Number one, just because the office wasn’t locked, didn’t mean you didn’t break into it. And number two, all out-going calls from the Base must be authorized.”
“Just to call my dad? You’re saying I need permission to simply call my father.”
“You need permission to use Int Base equipment. You need authorization.” He glanced down at his notes. “Says here you submitted a CSW. Which was the proper way to go about things.”
“And which was two days ago. How long is it supposed to take for someone to decide if it’s okay for a kid to call his dad?”
“Depends on the kid. Depends on the situation. Lots of factors to consider.”
“To simply call one’s parent?” I scoffed. “Excuse me if I think that’s bullshit.”
“You don’t have a complete picture of what goes on around here so you’re in no position to know what’s bullshit and what’s not.”
“Then why don’t you enlighten me? Like what’s with all the security? Why all the secrecy?”
Guy may have been eighteen or nineteen but he talked and acted like someone two or three times older. Had his stupid-ass mustache been any wispier, the flow from the air duct would have blown it away.
“Everything we do here,” he said, “is based on the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics. That’s what ethics is all about. Doing what’s right. Making the best decisions based on what’s best for all things considered.”
“And you’re saying calling my dad is not for the greatest good?”
“I’m saying you don’t have the full story.”
“Then enlighten me. Fill me in with the details.”
Guy leaned back in his chair. “You’re here because of what happened while you were on the Purif back in Santa Barbara. You’re here for you own protection. We’re shielding you from getting crucified by the press. And the police harassing you. You’re here for your own good. We’re not punishing you, if that’s what you think. We’re protecting you.”
I wasn’t sure I was buying what Guy was selling. I rolled my eyes. Roxy stared straight ahead, not talking, not doing anything. I felt like taking her hand and telling her everything would be okay.
“How is keeping me from talking with my dad protecting me?” I asked.
“Have you considered that his phone might be bugged?”
“Like someone is monitoring all his calls?”
“Exactly.”
I hadn’t considered this.
“Is that a real thing?” I asked. Happened all the time on TV and in the movies.
“You bet it is. The more successful we become, the more the SPs come out of the woodwork and try to do us in.”
“You’re saying, the more successful Scientology becomes, the more the press and the police try to stop it?”
“And the medical, drug, and psychiatric industries. Who are all heavily invested in the status quo. The more people they hook on drugs, the better for them. And the worse for the rest of us. They’re trying to destroy the planet. We’re trying to save it. Just look around you. The world is teetering on the brink of destruction. War, famine, drugs, illiteracy, environmental collapse. Believe me, Rick, these aren’t all accidental. These’ve all been planned. By SPs. Bent on destruction.”
For sure, the world wasn’t perfect. War, famine, drugs, illiteracy, environmental collapse…yeah, these things all existed. If Guy had had a flag, I expected he would have jumped up and waved it.
“They’d like nothing better to paint Scientology—and you—as insane. This crazy cult.” He paused and looked into my eyes. “Think what your life would become? The press, the cops hounding you. Everyday. People staring at you every time you walked down the street. All your friends…” Guy shook his head. “All your friends turning away, not wanting anything to do with you. Your life would be pretty much screwed, Rick.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” I said. “But don’t you think I should at least let my dad know I’m okay? Like for all he knows, I’ve been abducted by you. Which wouldn’t look good for Scientology.”
“And which is one of the reasons for the CSW.”
“Huh?”
“We need to make sure you and your family are safe from unhealthy eyes and ears. So that when you do communicate with them, the press and the cops won’t be listening in on the conversation and tracing the call.”
“And how would that happen?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a tech guy. I just know that we’re working on it.”
I leaned back and shut my eyes. Suddenly I was exhausted.
“This is hard. I know,” Guy said. “But we’ll work something out. We’ll get through this.”
Roxy squeezed my thigh. Just above the knee—not too high up the leg. I nodded ever so slightly.
“And what about Roxy?” I asked.
“What about her?” Guy asked.
“Is she in trouble for this? Because just so you know, she tried to stop me from making this phone call.”
Guy smiled. “Nobody is in trouble.”
“So she’ll continue to be my twin.”
“Yes. Nothing has changed.”
Except my whole fuckin life.
Thing one, Thing two, and Thing three escorted Roxy and me back to our room. I wanted to shove the dresser over to the far wall and move our beds together. But I was too tired to do anything but strip off my clothes and slip under the covers. I didn’t even open my eyes when I heard Roxy rustling with her pants.
Our hero is becoming less likable as the story goes on. He is pushing her boundaries, then violating them in a bunch of small ways (because he “couldn’t help it”) that most women have experienced and are exhausted with. It doesn’t add up for me that Roxy would like this guy, especially as a life-long scientologist who seems to have drunk the kool-aid.
The story still has me hooked . Well done Terra!
In real life, high-level Scientology bases are about as easy to infiltrate as Kim Yong Un’s palaces, but this is the next best thing. Would be even better if COB were to make an appearance, like Darth Vader in Rogue One.
Sooooo …
Here’s a thing:
Roxy is young/niave/inexperienced.
Then we have this guy who won’t take “no” for an answer.
Rick is coercive.
Although many would see it as “traditional guy chasing girl”
There is currently an obvious inequality presented emotionally.
Coercive sexual assault is a thing and it’s acknowledged these days – Sure, she didn’t say “no” – but she’d been SAYING “no” – she didn’t agree to company in the shower –
Even though she returned a kiss and is aroused – she still pulls away and says “no” and “I cant”.
Our hero is turning dark.
The question:
Was this consciously done
And this show of a “traditional mating dance”
going to lead to something very very bad?
Or
Is this just here to titillate?
Hnnng, seriously? This is a work of FICTION. Given your standards of morality – for fiction – and how seriously you take it, I’d strongly advise that you NOT read any of the great classics of English literature, including, and especially, Shakespeare!
I don’t know, the guy is starting to sound like a sexual predator, and his prey is barely 18. Getting a little creepy…
I should have read this before commenting.
I see it too.
Respectfully disagree, N. Didn’t you have those feelings when you were very young? Possibly you did but just never put them into words?
Having feelings is one things – using said feelings to pressure someone to come across is something else.
That doesn’t mean intentions are bad – but boundaries are.
Goethe is LIVID!
Aha! That was an interesting “word clear”. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 1749-1832
from wikipedia:
Many of Goethe’s works, especially Faust, the Roman Elegies, and the Venetian Epigrams, depict erotic passions and acts. For instance, in Faust, the first use of Faust’s power after signing a contract with the devil is to seduce a teenage girl. Some of the Venetian Epigrams were held back from publication due to their sexual content. Goethe clearly saw human sexuality as a topic worthy of poetic and artistic depiction, an idea that was uncommon in a time when the private nature of sexuality was rigorously normative.[53]
Consensual fucking doesn’t bother me.
Sensuality doesn’t bother me.
My point of saying not knowing the end game.
Goethe said:
The work of art may have a moral effect,
but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.
But hey.
So goes life.
Hnnng – I think the paragraph from wiki is interesting and also the quote you mention. I don’t quite understand your point of not knowing the end game but since this is the weekly literary klatch I’ll make a general comment which might cover it.
It’s becoming apparent and interesting that because there are editing comments and even some degree of collaboration a lot of differing opinions are coming up. It’s difficult on a blog to see how firm someone is in their opinion and also different than discussing a book which is already published and the whole story is known.
Terra might start a new genre of fact/fiction/fantasy dime store novels about scientology. No offense intended toward Terra – it’s his first try. Even Mr. Hubbard did not attain recognition and fame at the very beginning of his illustrious writing career – haha
I would invest in CoS pulp fiction.
Hands down.
Hnnng, my Evangelical relatives read books I think you’d like. Aside from the Bible, and a newsletter from their church, these books are ALL they read.
Nothing EVER happens in these books to make them uncomfortable. Nothing they read in these works of fiction ever disturbs them in any way because everything they read is fully in agreement with what they believe and how they believe everyone else should behave and beliieve.
Of course, they watch Fox News incessantly which disturbs continually, but that’s TV and somehow different. Its ok with them that Fox & Friends upsets them because that’s TV and they expect to be upset by it, but heaven forbid, they canNOT be upset by anything they READ!
Now, in your heart of hearts, if ANY of this indicates to you, next time I speak with them (which isn’t often) I’ll get the name of some of those authors and post them here for you. Just let me know. Cheers.
@Aguamarine
Wat?
This is where you think I’m coming from?
Seriously,
My perspective is as a woman who has worked intensively with rape survivors …
Victimized by family members/lovers/strangers/what have you.
And I tend to be ultra sensitive to coercive tactics so I apologize.
As I said somewhere else – I don’t know the end game of the story.
But pushing someone to do something after they have said no …
It’s an issue these days. Rape doesn’t happen in a vacuum etc etc etc.
The comment was for the author to consider.
PS. Thanks for bringing up the whole Christian Conservative thing –
Seeings how I survived one of their cults. It puts me in my place to reevaluate my approach to things.
I really don’t belong on this board.
Hnnng: The author will consider your point of view. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
“Seriously,
My perspective is as a woman who has worked intensively with rape survivors…
Victimized by family members/lovers/strangers/what have you.”
Absolutely NO apology necessary, Hnnng, no kidding!
NOW I understand.
Thank you very much for explaining this to me! I appreciate it.
I can look from this viewpoint and see how alarm bells would go off as re the seduction of Roxy. I can see what you’re seeing now and I totally get it!
Not that it bothers ME but you know there’s a wide wide world out there!
And I made a bad assumption when I lumped you in with my relatives so I actually owe you an apology which I hope you’ll accept.
Last but not least, Hnnng, please allow me the opinion that you belong on this board as much as does anyone who wants to be here.
Aqua – Is there something wrong with watching Fox News? To me that’s a part of liberal arrogance. Any differing with “progressive” ideas gets a label.
Richard, I can give you a brief polite answer or I can give you my honest opinion.
But the latter response would not be appropriate for this blog, so here’s how I’ll respond about Fox which applies to cable TV news in general:
Fox News is not news. Except for possibly Sheppard Smith, its entertainment.
Lots of people (on both sides of the political spectrum) enjoy this sort of entertainment.
So the answer is, nothing is wrong with watching Fox or any cable “news” if your purpose is to be entertained. Cheers.
PS: Richard, at the risk of making you really hate me and/or sounding like the posterwoman for a condescending political liberal, I’m going to disclose that I am, for lack of a better term, an information snob. I’m very particular about how I get my information. Ideally, I would want just FACTS but that’s impossible so here’s what I do:
When I want facts with a conservative bias I read the WSJ – online or in print as someone in my office subscribes to it so I’ve got it every day free after he’s finished with it. I’ll also read the National Review online to get the conservative viewpoint.
When I want facts with a liberal bias its the New York Times or the Washington Post.
When I’m not in the mood for facts but simply want some red meat political entertainment to suit my admittedly my liberal bias, I’ll read Time Magazine online or watch CNN online. CNN is liberal bias entertainment, that’s all.
Sometimes, just out of curiosity, and to educate myself about OTHER peoples’ red meat political entertainment I’ll read Breitbart online and read the comments.
I can’t watch Hannity and Ingerham or Coulter, though. I should be able to. I have tried. Even knowing that they’re entertainers and not journalists doesn’t help. Them I need to build up to on a gradient.
I am glad you talked about the dead woman that I asked about last week. But maybe just a flashback as to what is happening with his father and friend and work .My old workplace would have called after me not reporting in to work and called my family as they were emergency contact. Most families would know something is wrong by now. My family would have called the police if I missed work, my car is at home and I am not at work Just something to let us know what is happening at home would be good for the flow , more realistic
At the end of the last chapter Rick has only been away from his normal routine at his detached cottage for one extra day. The surf was up at Newport Beach and he took off with a friend for a day or two. The cops wouldn’t even investigate at this point. Rick quit his job without notice. It happens all the time. It’s all part of the tension of the plot.
Rick and Roxy seem to be doing the Purif and the Survival Rundown simultaneously. That’s gross out tech. It should be Purif to completion, then Survival RD.
The novel is a put down of scn. I don’t expect it to be accurate.
Incorporeal Joan is now floating around Rick awaiting a resolution to her problem which is unexpectedly dropping the body in the sauna and being unceremoniously treated. Maybe there is a Thelema sex magick ritual going on somewhere on the base and Rick and Roxy get invited. Bingo – Joan’s problem is solved – from an overweight middle aged woman to a Goddess!
Richard: Sex magick ritual. Of course!
Terra!
A sex magick ritual?
IN SCIENTOLOGY?!!!!!!!
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course there’s no sex magick ritual in Scientology. Ron didn’t want his subjects engaging in no sex without his say-so…… AND not without that admittedly failed WOG tradition called marriage. As I’ve thought about it, he went very old-school Christian after awhile: Sex only in marriage, Sex only for procreation; That sort of thing. What really got me at Flag was an edict that no staff could cause another to have an orgasm unless they were married. THAT directive didn’t sound like Tubby, but more like a Messenger trying to sound more experienced than she was. Was so out of character that I actually snickered when I read it.
Maybe in the next installment of the story Roxy will report Rick’s bad behavior and they’ll toss him into the Hubbard Alpha Wave Adjustment Booth. Once his theta/mass ratio is adjusted his behavior should improve.
Why is it OK to spread untruth in the context of a put down?
An even more egregious example is the so-called auditing in “The Master.” It violated the Auditor’s Code six ways to Sunday.
Is this a serious question?
I will assume it is and try to explain this.
If you were to write a book or produce a movie that purports to accurately portray scientology, you would never get it produced as the legal threats from scientology. It is easier to make it fictionalized “based on” rather than purporting to be reality.
So you see “versions” of things that don’t have real names and aren’t exactly accurate (The Master was a very loose interpretation of many things and much was changed) so they CAN be categorized as fiction. Nobody is going to confuse The Master or this book for the Orientation Film or What Is Scientology?
Could this backfire?
Associating things that dont exist/happen with the actual name of a church/proceedure ?
Would it be better to change the names of the church and “stuff” so that it isn’t blatent?
I’m just curious. I don’t understand the end-game so forgive my ignorance.
Of course – Im the 1 person who hated The Davinci Code. Just enough provable symbols/existance of belief systems on top of THE ADVENTURE.
“Im the 1 person who hated The Davinci Code.”
Nope. I hated it, too. It tried to make out that sexual abuse of teenage girls is an acceptable part of Goddess worship. Plus, it was stupid. ?
I think most non-ex-Scientologists who don’t know any better would believe that “The Master” and Terra’s novel are closer to the truth than they actually are.
“Altered to worsen” isn’t necessary. The truth is bad enough.
My 2 Cents – The point I’m making is that Terra’s novel isn’t about scn, it’s anti scn. When and if he publishes it he’s going to portray everything from word clearing to TRs to whatever else comes up as ridiculous. Perhaps oddly, I think the novel would get some people interested in scn, hopefully not within the Co$. A “Survival Rundown”? What’s that? “Communication Training Routines”? That sounds interesting. Etc.
>> … I think the novel would get some people interested … <<
Curious?
We thought so.
Hey! MTC the scamology troll is back!
Why do you follow a cult leader who was an insane felon MTC?
SERIOUS question.
Wynsky calling someone else a troll? The overt doth speak loudly.
As for following LRH, I don’t. I seek truth and workability from many sources, and did so when I was a COS member, too.
Like everyone else, LRH was both right and wrong, and did both good and bad. I try to use the right/good and avoid the wrong/bad.
Obsessing over the wrong/bad is insane. What are you doing to succeed at the purpose that got you into Scientology in the first place?
M2C, to begin with, old-timers said that Hubbard was a sloppy, even bad auditor. And it was certainly characteristic of him to take a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude towards things – it’s pretty clear in the old lectures, for instance, that he treated the part of that “not evaluating for the preclear” as if it didn’t apply to him. So the auditing in “The Master” presents a certain aspect of the historical truth, and could actually be much closer to the truth than what Hubbard and Scientology lead you to assume or believe.
There has been, and continues to be, so much “out tech” in Scientology that TC is also getting at a certain truth here. Isn’t what is written, something that could have happened – or maybe even based uncomfortably closely on something that actually did? It may not have been what you experienced, or what you thought Scientology should be, but who’s really to say that it’s untrue?
By the way, are you equally disturbed that Hubbard “spread untruth,” and that Scientology continues to do so? It’s hard to know what the truth is, because it’s been systematically misrepresented and covered up for 70 years or more.
You just hit the nail on the head, Peacemaker. Very astute comments.
Purif & SRD at the same time = outtech? IMO, the Purif, by itself, was gross out tech; I never did no drugs & hardly ever even aspirin, yet I HAD to go through the steps, there were no exceptions. Didn’t do anything for anyone that I saw except give us a chance to relax for awhile. No one yelling, no meaningless running around, no forced study time. (I was in the RPF at the time, so the hours of down-time were golden.)
The EP of the SRD can only be “I SURVIVED!” Doing every Objective process ever hinted at HAS to be over-run as a general rule. It’s even more brutal on the auditor than it is to the victim(recipient). The “pc”can simply zone out and do the motions on autopilot. At least that’s how I got through them without “doing a Miscavige” on my auditor.(Legend has it that he clocked his auditor while co-auditing at St Hill.)
Jere,
I had a similar experience to yours on the Purif. Not everyone needs it. Maybe most don’t need it. I didn’t.
Like any Expanded Grade, the Survival Rundown should be run to the EP of the grade, not the completion of every process. Run in this proper way it frees the preclear. Overun it makes preclears obedient but too weak to benefit from the rest of the Bridge. That’s major suppression.
M2C, maybe no one needs it, and it really just comes down to the level of placebo effect – and seeing the pattern that you think you are in what is effectively just random, is due to confirmation bias.*
If you gave people the same expectations as for the purif, but instead made the putative exercise something (anything, really) such as the chopping of wood at a Buddhist monastery, you’d get a certain number of people reporting “wins,” and probably even “spiritual” experiences and “gains.” That’s just a trick of the human mind, if people are set up with hopes and particularly if that is reinforced in a social environment, a significant number of them will report the result they think they were supposed to achieve – and observers with similar preconceptions, may mistakenly think they see a cause and effect.
* “Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Placebo effect and confimation bias were sometimes a factor. But much of Scientology tech does work, even if not as well as LRH claimed. The problem is mainly that he left the tech incomplete and flawed while claiming the opposite. Outside of the Church that can be fixed.
M2C, if the “tech” did work to any significant extent, then after more than 65 years, there’d been some proof of that – including outside of the “church,” where there have also been independents for more than 65 years, too. Small-scale low-budget research studies get done and published all the time, particularly in areas like psychology, so the fact that nothing has ever been produced out of Dianetics and Scientology – combined with corroborated accounts that the CofS arranged for research, specifically into the purif, and then suppressed it when results didn’t pan out – essentially establishes the ineffectiveness of the tech (plus there were the 2 early studies that disproved Hubbard’s theories, too).
Sarge Gerbode’s independent research, resulting in TIR (which has been published) actually shows that none of the “tech” works except for some basics of un-metered trauma counseling, and even then it’s not particularly more effective than other other modalities. I’ll grant that you’ve probably witnessed some of that effect – but anything else is placebo affect, and confirmation bias; that’s pretty well established and proven at this point.
If Gerbode’s research shows that almost no LRH tech works, then why does Gerbode’s organization sell and deliver lower grades and train therapists to do the same?
And why are there other auditors with sucessful field practices outside the Church?
Why have the Rons Orgs survived for 35 years without Church-type hype?
What confirmation bias do YOU have going on?
M2C, let’s turn a question around and ask: why aren’t the independents and freezoners booming and attracting people new to Scientology, if they actually have something to offer that works and is of value? Instead, they seem to rely almost entirely on people who’ve come out of the CofS but remain (at least initially) committed to continuing to try to get something out of Scientology, and even given that, they seem to be slowly fading and failing.
It’s a well known foible of human behavior, that people will keep doing something that has failed, expecting a different result – the popular definition of insanity. That some people persist at Scientology after leaving the CofS, patronizing outside auditors and orgs, tells us nothing useful – it’s readily explained as an error of judgement, by the cognitive bias known as sunk cost or escalation of commitment*. The fact that there is no supporting research, and not even any widely recognized or undeniable successful results, probably tells us more about the phenomenon really at work.
As for Gerbode, his TIR and Metapsychology (a term originating with Freud), from what I know of such work it has developed and evolved to be far removed from Dianetics and Scientology; it might be said to have roots more in the sort of sources that Hubbard himself borrowed from or plagiarized. I don’t think it’s at all accurate to characterize Metapsychology as delivering “lower grades” (of Scientology) unless you have specific and recent knowledge of just exactly what is being delivered.
I used to know quite a few of the old-timer indies, and had some appreciation for the movement in general. But their hapless inability to organize successfully (older efforts like IV have fallen apart) or do something professional such as actual research, and the ongoing failure to produce any objectively verifiable results, can no longer be ignored. The old-timers who are still around and who I do still keep tabs on, seem to me to be tending towards just the basics of “book one” auditing without a meter – like Gerbode, discarding Scientology, and really even Dianetics, for something more just like any form of Rogerian person-centered counseling, with perhaps a bit of Freudian-influenced traumatic event catharsis.
The only “confirmation bias” I have going on here, is that I want so see actual confirmation of results. Supposed anecdotal evidence (very limited, at that), doesn’t cut it in the 21st century, especially as modern research into how the mind actually works, reveals how prone we are to errors of subject judgment.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment
Put up the evidence or admit your stupidity
As has been told to all Hubtard followers for decades. And of course none of those insane people could put up evidence
Every peak, transcendental, extrasensory, paranormal and so on experience can be attributed to chemicals in the brain – if that’s what someone wants to do. I don’t follow or practice Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory but I like this quote from wiki:
Wilber: “Are the mystics and sages insane? Because they all tell variations on the same story, don’t they? The story of awakening one morning and discovering you are one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and infinite fashion. Yes, maybe they are crazy, these divine fools. Maybe they are mumbling idiots in the face of the Abyss. Maybe they need a nice, understanding therapist. Yes, I’m sure that would help. But then, I wonder. Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual’s consciousness does indeed touch infinity—a total embrace of the entire Kosmos—a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature. It’s at least plausible. And tell me: is that story, sung by mystics and sages the world over, any crazier than the scientific materialism story, which is that the entire sequence is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing? Listen very carefully: just which of those two stories actually sounds totally insane?”[18]
Confirmation bias enters the equation. I need to go cut the grass.
Richard, I’m an admirer of Wilbur, who I’ve actually crossed paths with because we share another mutual interest. Perhaps I’m rather like you in that I like where he is going with his ideas, even though I don’t totally buy into his approach.
Just because I think Scientology is a dead end that has little if anything worthwhile to offer in terms of mental health or spiritual growth, doesn’t mean that I think that people are just meat and mechanics – that’s a false dichotomy that Scientology tries to exploit as a cheap rhetorical tool. If anything, I’m disappointed that Scientology, and worse yet the indies – who’ve had freedom, and should know better – not only failed to live up to their stated promise, but truly squandered any opportunities they might have had.
I don’t think that one has to be unscientific or give in to biases, to live life open to just the sort of of spiritual possibilities or even transcendence that the quote from Wilbur hints at. My experience is that if anything, questioning and being critical (in an analytical sense) allows one to separate out mundane things in life that might easily be false attributed, from the few that remain truly inexplicable and thus might point to some greater unknown.
It so happens that the first girl/young woman I ever noticed, as such, was wearing a red bikini and could have passed for “a Santa Barbara lifeguard,” and so I approve of this section before reading any further.
She was an older woman, at least 16 — I hope she’s had a happy life, whatever she did. Can still see her now, standing on a platform on a lake, blonde hair shining in the summer sun….
Snake: I think we swam in the same lake.
Snake: Such delicious memories from the real world…. Isn’t it great to be out and able to have real experience in the real world rather than being stuck in the zone of insanity commonly called “the Bubble”?
My 2 Cents: You asked a very good question regarding Gerbode’s research. The words you used were “almost no”. That leaves open a wide door given the amount of research having been done. I got my grades back in the 60s. Much of it worked just fine. And I have no interest in convincing anyone else that those worked for me. Many others also got a lot from the lower grades. I saw many of the changes and certainly experienced them in my own life.
When Power Processing came in, I noted some spectacular changes in both Clears and OTs. (Power Processing seemed one of those add ons which – at least at first – could be done by anyone. One of the particular questions in PP, once answered, completely altered my life. I had a dial wide F/N for almost four months afterwards and could do no further auditing during that time. So “almost no” might have been correct, but actual results – for me and many others I knew – was a whole different story.
Science *still* knows very little about either the brain (physical) or the mind (ephermeral). Much has changed over the past 20 years. The quantum field, alone, has begun a whole new scientific ball game. We still KNOW very little about much of anything.
This does NOT in any way “forgive” the crimes of scn nor does it claim that everything Hubbard spouted was true. However, I’ve repeatedly stated here that no truly good con cam be effected unless there is *some* truth in it. I saw some of that truth and had it affect my life. My opinion.
Oooh, Terra, you’re really getting good! Thanks for a terrific installment The language back and forth between the two kids is very believable.
Gracias, Aqua.
You’re a smooth and talented writer, Terra. The story flows incredibly well and it’s very interesting! I enjoy reading it. Thank you for sharing.
I noticed someone commented that he thought it was a bit too slow. I don’t think it’s slow, it’s that there’s just a bit too much simple dialogue. When dialogue breaks back and forth too much, it slows the pace of a book. So condense it. Less breaks back and forth, and eliminate any unnecessary dialogue. Dialogue should never explain things that are part of the actual story action. Show it in action, rather than talk about it between your characters.
The sexual tease between them in the sauna was great, btw. It left me wondering whether Roxy was assigned to play him or whether she really liked him. I also thought the way you introduced explanations of terms was clever and smooth, considering how many terms there are, but it was just a bit too much. Maybe some of the terms could be completely eliminated. I was thinking, why bother even explaining a CSW? You could have a pre-printed form that’s required instead, that he reads, with a line that says the person must handwrite “This is Okay.” We’ve used pre-printed forms before for CSWs, though I have no idea what’s in vogue for COS these days.
I look forward to reading the next installment! You’re doing a great job. Cheers!
Sheila: Thanks for your valuable input. Cheers!
At the beginning: “Roxy word” should be “Roxy wore”.
Can we please start speculating about which actors/actresses should be in the movie…? 😛
Well, if it were 20 years ago i’d opt for Renee Zellweiger as Roxy, because she’s petite and kind of feisty like Terra’s Roxy. She also did a great job on Bob Fosse’s Roxy but that’s pure name coincidence because even though they were both very feisty young women these 2 Roxy’s are otherwise totally different people.
Trev: The villain in Ready, Player, One was a dead ringer for David Miscavige.
Hey Terra, great job so far.
I know the “Int Base” is only as you might imagine it, never having been there, but here’s what really happens if you approach the security fence:
There are ground sensors buried maybe thee feet from the fence, and shake sensors on the fence itself. Very strong halide spotlights are mounted on the fence. All the sensors are connected to a system that shows any alerts and automatically turns on the lights if they are triggered, at the same time showing the alert on a screen in the guard booth.
So if you walk up to the fence at night, when you get within about three feet very bright lights come on directly in your face. You will soon hear a motorbike and see an armed guard approaching fast. At this point they also have you on camera and are recording.
For those who have never been to the Int Base, all this security is really outward facing despite the fact that the razor wire is sharp on both sides. There are pedestrian gates in the fence and they all open without a key or code going out. You have to have the code or get someone to let you in to get in one of these gates, but you can easily get out.
The kicker is that all these pedestrian gates are near guard booths, so if you tried to get out without permission you would have to explain what you were doing, and they aren’t too reasonable about it.
Factually your fictional character could easily just walk out and wait for a bus but it is unlikely he knows this. And they would use all their organizational skills to stop him, saying that he has to get permission, saying there are procedures and rules to be followed, warning about punishments that they might do to him or his friends or family, warning about consequences to his eternal future, saying he would be sick broke or helpless if he left.
The whole penitentiary panoply of the prison of belief.
My God, Bruce. It really is Beyond Belief. That this exists today, in 2018, in the US of A…really no words do justice to this insanity!
Bruce – Are the ground sensors on the inside or outside of the fence or on both sides?
You know, Richard, now that you ask I am not absolutely certain that there are seismic sensors inside the fence. But I have definitely had the experience of walking too close to it and having the lights come on. Maybe they are close enough to the fence that they pick up vibrations from both sides or maybe I triggered the shake sensors on the chain link fence.
Richard, the ground sensors are on the inside when the fence is up against the public road easement. Outside when space permits. They are sensitive. But anyone can just leave when they want to. It is a prison of the mind and family connections and for many, a lack of money.
Having sensors on a fence makes sense. Someone might cut the fence and steal or make a getaway on a riding lawn mower. That’s what Marty did, didn’t he?
He drove through the gates on his motorcycle that he subsequently gave to a kid in Banning.
I was joking. Marty blasting down the road on a riding lawnmower is a funnier picture, right? One chance a week to not be so serious.
Bruce: Wow! I should have consulted you before putting ink to paper.Thanks for all this. Fascinating!
Bruce: About that bus: Might not Rick simply see a bus go past? And might there be a marked bus stop within sighting distance? Paying for the bus might be a problem. As I’ve read, I didn’t see a reason for Rick to have a wallet on him. In similar circumstances, I’d throw mine in my car’s glove compartment, as there was no reason to have it in the Academy, except possibly as a “demo piece”. I WOULD bring in my pocket knife for sculpting the clay. If you don’t have your credit cards, the Reg can’t get you to use them to buy something on them.
Riverside Transport RTA 31 passes by the Int Base about every two hours, according to their schedule. A stop is shown right outside the main entrance. In the time I was there nobody ever took the bus, but there is no legal reason they could not.
No reason why Rick wouldn’t have any cash, he probably would have had his wallet when he went to the session at AOLA. They didn’t tell him he was going anywhere until he was on the way. But I can see the value of the anti-reg strategy of leaving your wallet in the car. Just not something I ever did, but most of the time I was staff with my $20 life savings on my person at all times. You never know when you might want to get a candy bar in the canteen. I never had any credit cards or bank accounts etc.
If you were making this as realistic as possible, you would have Rick holding onto a bit of cash. Most of the meals at the Int Base leave you wanting a little nutritional supplementation and the only way to get that is with cash in the canteen. If you are coping with sleep deprivation using coffee and cigarettes the canteen is your life line. Even the last ditch strategy of keeping awake by mainlining vitamin C requires Emergen-C from the canteen.
In Chapter 31: “Geeze, don’t you get tire of asking questions?” Suggest you either change “tire” to “tired” – or omit the word “get” so the sentence reads, “Geeze, don’t you tire of asking questions?” Also, in one of the chapters the word “bonus” is used in a sentence that says, “…always bonus….” Perhaps you unintentionally omitted the word “a” — if so, it should read “…always a bonus.”
Sending you gratitude for the pleasure I’ve received, and will continue to receive, from your future, best0selling book! Sending you and your loved ones my love…light…blessings.. ..
Bg: Thanks for catching these errors and your kind words.
…and in the other room, someone is coaching the author on correct technique for writing a pot-boiler boy-meets-girl, girl-rejects-boy, boy-becomes-despondent-and gets-into-trouble, girl-saves-boy-and-they-finally-have-great-sex novel. Are wedding bells near?
So far, the chapters are intense, realistic, and not exactly predictable all at the same time. All those factors are in its favor as a good read. But please keep both the kids alive, sending the girl off to die in a Lisa McP type of Introspection Rundown is not something I would like to read, unless of course Rick could rescue her and they live happily ever after (‘ever after’ being limited, since the average length of a US marriage that ends in divorce is less than 8 years.)
It is surprising to me that this episode includes a young MAA who actually tries to explain the reasons behind denying the phone call, though his paranoid Hubbard-bot cultism is showing big time. He may no know it, but the MAA character is just doing his part in “the talking cure”, which means if the person in authority just keeps talking, maybe repeating the same theme in different words, always trying to sound reasonable as heck, sooner rather than later the person with the problem just gets tired of listening and goes away without any real resolution to the problem they initially presented. In this case, Rick walked away, still effectively in custody of the SO, still denied access to a phone, uncertain if or when he could ever phone home while at the base.
Good job, TC, this serial is a very fun to read.
“girl-saves-boy-and-they-finally-have-great-sex novel.” funny! Sex sells. “Fifty Shades of Sea Org Grey”
Rick and Roxy need to get it on soon – poor Joan is waiting for a new body and Rick is responsible. (joke)
Wasn’t there some kind of scn “tech” that if something breaks down the person nearest to it when it broke down is responsible? Rick was nearest to Joan when she “broke down”.
I know the work it takes to even attempt a novel, so I’m proud of Terra Cognita for sharing with us! It’s an interesting concept. As an editor, I think this book moves really slowly, especially for people who already know even a little bit about Scientology. Thirty chapters in and we still don’t know anything about what’s happening with Joan? I don’t think most readers would stay with this story that long. I’d suggest not writing the story in just one time frame. Using flashbacks could speed the story up or adding another character (a coroner or a detective maybe? Or the husband?) to give some juicy details on what’s happening with Joan’s side of the story would help, in my opinion. Best wishes on your novel!
I Love Writing: For sure, nobody enjoys reading a slow-moving novel. Thanks for your suggestions.
Another step deeper into the sticky morass and more insider insights revealed.
Here goes my edit-y input:
Chapter 31, great exchange in the sauna about her being a page and wanting to audit or supervise. How she says how things work is illuminating.
When she says, “It’s not like any other business” I think she’d say any other organization. I doubt she views the SO or the cherch as a ‘business.’
The fact that she is used to the yelling and makes excuses is chilling.
For an indecisive guy, he’s pretty pushy getting in the shower stall. I’d like to know when he became so forward. Was it the comm course? TR’s? I like his gentle forwardness, and it’s clearly getting under Roxy’s skin.
Chapter 32, Love the stuff about PT.
I love the self doubt of why had he let himself go to Hemet. I’d actually love a deeper more introspective look at why he did it. Was he a pushover? Did he do what people said? If so was he anxious to please? If so how does that work with his rebellious nature? It’s almost like if he’d had time to reflect he wouldn’t have done it.
Great explanation of CSW.
Chapter 33, First sentence misspelled “shined.”
Where it says, “The moon had widened” I stopped up short. What? The moon hasn’t widened in my experience. Seemed to get bigger? I noticed the moon? It seemed brighter?
Great tension with them with her clearly attracted to him, but telling him no. But them sleeping in the same room is still seeming crazy to me.
I liked the zit it made her more real.
Ch 34, it seems like your sauna temp is too high.
I could use more of his concern for his dad, Dev and his job at Starbucks.
Loved the convo about intention. And the interaction with Carlos the sup and his endless wordclearing.
Chap 35, How does he know about the RPF?
As the security guys come for you both I don’t see your sea org handler taking your hand.
The rest, I want more about the MAA and what will happen ethics wise.
Sleeping in the same room is explained on the first night which at this point is the night before. Roxy is well aware that any indiscretions will be caught in the metered security checks. It might also be mentioned that scn-ists, particularly sea org scn-ists, are expected to “keep their ethics in”. Roxy is responsible for Rick and if she was asleep in another room he could go wandering around.
Terra Reader: Thanks for your comments. Regarding why Rick allowed himself to go to Hemet, good question. Why did any of us allow ourselves to become so deeply involved in Scientology? I suppose we all have our own reasons.
My spouse thought the temp in the sauna was too high, too!
As for knowing about the RPF, I remember having to spend hours on long word chains just from reading the headings on HCOBs and HCOPLs. I probably spent more time clearing definitions from my tech and admin dictionaries than I did the actual course material.
I greatly appreciate your comments.
In chapter 32 it’s mentioned that after course the 5 students went home. It might better be described as they went back to their living quarters or something like that.
Everyone scarfing down all their meals and rushing back to post doesn’t sound realistic to me but maybe that’s what happens in the sea org. They surely would be on a rigid time schedule as in schools or maybe in the military. Possibly higher ranking people would dine elsewhere and have more leisurely meals. Rising up the corporate ladder and getting perks as in corporate America might be the hope of sea org personnel.
Apparently the RPF has been abolished and other methods of “correction” are in use. I haven’t seen any recent descriptions of sea org life and whether or not it still consists of 100 hour work weeks. Somewhere I read that sea org now get a $50/week stipend but I don’t know if that’s true. For the purposes of the novel an extended description of past or current sea org life isn’t necessary and it’s abuses are still discussed on the blogs.
Mission staff pay in the 1970s was always ridiculously low but I survived by doing part time wog work. Two times I lived in a scientology house and we shared expenses. I didn’t feel deprived but it was only for a matter of months each time rather than years and I don’t regret it. I never made it to a hippy commune so that was my alternative experience.
Hi Richard. Thanks for your input.
“Living quarters” is better than “home.”
Having never dined at Int Base, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that scene. I’m sure Bruce P. would know, though.
I was aware that the RPF is no longer used. However…maybe this story took place just before it was abolished. Anyway, love your input.
Terra, last I heard meals were 30 minutes long. Often people couldn’t arrive at start of meal but ALL have to be at post meal roll call. So, there is a rush to eat and not be sent to ethics for being late to muster.
p.s. I wouldn’t say the RPF (an LRH tech program) was abolished unless you personally inspect all S.O. bases to verify.
I just noticed something. Above I write “Possibly higher ranking people would dine elsewhere . . . “. It should be written “Higher ranking people would possibly dine elsewhere . . . ” with possibly modifying dine. After three years of commenting on scn blogs I’m finally noticing my own grammar mistakes.
As re higher ranking SO people dining elsewhere: they have to. How does IJC Mike Ellis stay so obese if he lives on rice and beans? Just looking at this guy is all you’d need in order to know that his diet is over- loaded with white sugar, trans fats and cheap carbs
Do sea org members CURRENTLY live on rice and beans? Is this a fact or hyperbole?
Rice and beans is not ALWAYS bad. I used to work in New Orleans where red beans and rice (sometimes just called red beans) is a VERY tasty dish.
Richard there was NEVER one answer to that questions. Different bases and different Orgs within those bases had completely different amounts of money to spend.
Generally it was SO service orgs (that made all the money) that Hubtard had on rice & beans while CMO units who produced no income were well fed and housed. Middle management CLOs & FB level were on and off that type of torture. Gold was sometimes punished thus. ED Int & his staff and above almost never. RTC & ASI I never saw them get that treatment.
And of course I’m sure it got worse after DM was handed the CoS by Hubtard.