Family and my Decision to be a Scientologist

Scientology Cross on the Founding Church of Scientology, Washington, D.C.

A college anthropology student sent me a question from my Scientology Parent page, as she’s doing some study for her class on how family history & background can lead people to various religions.  As she was studying about Scientology, she was curious how my own family and significant events in my life led me to Scientology.   Her questions were thought-provoking on my part (an angle I’d not yet thought about) so I figured I’d post my answers here.

Question:  How does your family history relate to your quest for meaning in life? How has the history of your family led you to Scientology?

I touched on this when I was answering a similar question for another student here, but I’ll try to tackle both parts of that question.

My mother and father were both Scientologists at the time I was born, both of them becoming involved with the religion about 4 years prior.   Until I was about 9 years old, we lived out on a 10-acre farm in mid-coast Maine, in a town of about 600 people.    Our nearest Scientology organization was in Boston, about 4 hours to the south, so I didn’t spend much time in the Church as I was growing up.    I knew quite well that my parents were Scientologists, though.  My parents quite liberally used Scientology Assists with my sister and I, a practice that instantly made sense to me and which I found helpful.  Other various basic tenets of Scientology found their way into conversations & questions that I’d pose, but it wasn’t until I was about 7 that I think I started to choose my own way on Scientology a bit.

See, I did have a number of friends who went to local churches on Sundays.  They’d attend their Sunday school as well.  I do remember posing questions to my parents and to my friends about why they went to church.   The only reason I could seem to get anyone to tell me was because they were meant to go to church, and that they did that because they were christian.   The reasoning seemed quite circular to me at the time (go to church because you’re christian because you have to go to church) and I wasn’t really tracking – there didn’t seem to be a purpose, and it seemed to my 9-year-old logic to be a great way to waste a Sunday when you could be out building a fort in the woods.

But I did learn that when my parents went to their Scientology church, they explained to me that it was always for a purpose.  They were always there doing a specific course of study or counseling action, one which had real-world benefit and was to help them with something that could be actually articulated (even to a 9-year-old) as a tangible benefit.   I naturally asked if I could take a course too, and enrolled onto a course communication course.  At the end of that communication course, I honestly felt I had learned something – I had figured out how to communicate better, I figured out that I could get my point across clearly, I understood why people didn’t like being interrupted, and that it was enjoyable for both parties when you’d acknowledge when you understood what they said.

And for me, at that point, it did really set the bar for all religion.  For me, my expectation was that, in going to church, one should be going so as to achieve some benefit to one’s life that one actually desires oneself, and not because of some fuzzily-understood moral/social obligation to “go to church”. 

The very next course I took in Scientology had to do with L. Ron Hubbard’s study technology.  And amongst all things, one thing that I learned is that the first barrier to learning anything is the idea that you already know all about it.  And if there’s someone who already “knows it all” it’s a spunky 9-year-old.   But that one stable datum has carried me through a lot of study and efforts to really understand life around me.

An interesting illustration of this:  I recently re-took that selfsame first course in Scientology – the Success Through Communication Course, just recently – doing the course together with my wife.  And the same exact principles that taught a 9 year old the value of actually communicating with parents & friends, was able to re-teach my wife and I how to communicate to each other and to our kids.   I wrote my thoughts on that here.

Question: What were some important milestones in your personal history that led to your choice to become a Scientologist?

Well, as I said above, I think that the key milestone for me which led me to being a Scientologist was where I took my first course – one that I completed at a small Portland, Maine outreach office of the Boston Scientology church.

The other reinforcing aspect I had to this was in watching my parents after taking Scientology services.  They would sometimes go down to the Scientology religious retreat in Clearwater, Florida for counseling services and to study.  Each time, when they came back, there would be this certain, difficult-to-describe, serenity or – really - certainty about their demeanor which indicated to me that they had resolved something personally, or had overcome something personally in their study, something difficult-to-describe which left them better and happier at the end.  It was something that I knew I wanted as well – I wanted to know that I had looked into myself, and found in myself what I wanted to change, and had done what I could to make that better.

At the time, as a kid, the one thing that was real to me was that I wanted to be fast as a student, and I wanted to be happy and motivated.  So, I approached a lot of my studies in Scientology with this in mind.

But later, the more I studied, the more I could see things in myself that were ripe for improvement.  My level of responsibility, my ability to absorb & understand new subjects, my ability to choose my friends and to know when relationships with others were dragging me down – these were all things I learned that I could do something about through Scientology and weren’t just things I needed to “understand I couldn’t change” or “learn to live with”.

But I’d say that by the time I was about 11, I was completely, and by my ownvery conscious decision, a Scientologist.

And, as you can see from my writing, that’s not something I’ve regretted.     Hopefully that answers your questions.

Aggregator for Scientology-Related Blog Posts

As an aid to find out what’s happening in the Scientology blogosphere, have a look at sites.dissem.org – a list of Scientology-related blogs that I’m keeping up with.   It’s by no means a complete list, but it’s got the majority of the good ones.   In terms of ways to use it:

• Just browse:  The site picks up new articles within seconds of when they’re published.  So, just hitting the home page of the site, you’re guaranteed to find the freshest Scientology-related news from around the world.
• Use the Search Box!  The site automatically imports the tags & categories of each blog post, as well as any text provided in the feed.  So, just try searching for “parenting” or “St. Louis” or “volunteer ministers” and the site will give you recent posts on each of those subjects.
• Use the feeds: If you have your own Scientology-related blog or website, you can easily put a list of recent Scientology-related posts on your site by grabbing the RSS feed.   Feeds are also available for any search term or tag as well.  So, let’s say you have a blog on Volunteer Minister activity in your area.     Just go to the  Volunteer Ministers category on the sites.dissem.org site, and then just add /feed to the address, like this.  That will give you an RSS feed you can use to plug into a widget on your WordPress / Drupal / Joomla site to give you an always-fresh list of posts about Volunteer Minister activity.
• Comment!  A great way to help each of these sites is to comment on posts that interest you.  Clicking on the “Write Comment” link on any of the posts will take you to the comments field for that website.  Handy.

If you have a Scientology-related blog that promotes Scientology activities in your area, or one that represents any of the various activities Scientologists are involved in locally, such as Anti-Drug, The Way to Happiness, Human Rights education, etc, and you wish to have it added – just fill out the contact form here.

My 9/11 Story

There is something I can always get into a colourful discussion with, with just about anyone — especially other Scientologists, which is the curious question of, “Where were you on September 11th, 2001?”

Now that it’s  10 years after these disasters happened in DC and New York, I figured I’d revisit this.  Unfortunately for those who were there, it’s generally known to the world as “the day the Twin Towers went down”.  The Pentagon is generally a totally forgotten piece to the story, and I’ve come across many people (especially amongst friends on the West Coast) that didn’t even know the Pentagon got hit.

But when I look back on it, I don’t look back at 9/11 as a time of sheer horror – but instead as a time when my friends and I really had a personal re-awakening, and a honing of purpose with respect to helping others – and not just focusing in on looking out for ourselves.

My own September 11th story has a bit of color to it.

In 2001, I was with the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. – amongst other things working in the area of personnel as well as on various promotional tasks.  I lived in Falls Church, Virginia, and rode my mountain bike in to the Church’s location in Dupont Circle, DC each day.  Anyone who knows DC traffic knows that it can be significantly faster to take a bike than a car sometimes, especially when the Pentagon is in full swing.   I’d ride in each day partially on the road, and until the Pentagon Annex, and then would take the bike path down the hill, past the old Pentagon helipad, and then across the Memorial Bridge.

In any case, a few days before, on the 8th of September or so, I went up to the Church’s New York City regional office for some training.   I was staying in a friend’s house in midtown Manhattan, and was all set to leave on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th when all of the sudden I was rustled out of bed by my friend.

“DUDE, GET UP!  The World Trade Center just exploded!”

We  raced up to his roof to see the plume of smoke coming from the first tower.  Being on 43rd St, we couldn’t hear a thing, but could definitely see the smoke.   Not knowing what in the sam hell was happening, we raced down to catch the news, just in time to see the 2nd plane hit the other tower.  The rest unfolded like the rest of the world saw it, and both towers came down.  Again, up on 43rd st, we could see it occur, but couldn’t hear it at all — so to us it was just like some terrible, awful movie.

Of course, being Scientologists, our first impulse was to go do something about it, so we raced outside to get down to the Church management building, so we could get organized.

The people outside were in a total daze.  It was really terrible to behold.  Like the entirety of New York had all just stumbled out of the same bad movie, in a complete disbelief of what had just happened.

Not too much later, the Church had started to organize up teams that were going to go down and start getting in there and pitching — something that has now become the stuff of legend.  I was definitely urged to stay and get down there, but unfortunately most people in New York had already also forgotten that my home city had just been hit as well.

I unfortunately could not get out of Manhattan until Tuesday the 12th at about 6pm, as the entire island was entirely locked-down.  The night of Tuesday, September 11th was one of the most surreal I have ever experienced.  A walk to Times Square allowed me a view of something I will never see again this lifetime:  a Vanilla-Sky-like view, where I could look all the way up and down Broadway, and there was not one single car on the road.  Not one.  It was a ghost town.  The only thing open was McDonalds, and some hearty individuals were there sharing their stories and their friendship.  It was a very, very different crowd than I’ve ever seen, especially in New York.

I got a 6pm train out of Penn Station the next day, stopping about 8 times on the way to DC so that the K9 search teams could go through the train cars looking for terrorists.   I finally arrived back to DC that night, to see the horror that became of the Pentagon.

In addition to punching a hole through what the hard workers there had just spent years renovating, the bastard terrorists had just skidded across the same bike path I took to the Church every day — and had happened to blast through it at exactly the same time as I used to ride past it.   So, I guess it was good that I happened to be in NYC at the time, or I would have found myself blasted into the side wall of the Pentagon, along with my bike.

But members of our Church worked hard to get folks in the area back on their feet following the disaster.    I spent my next several months helping the Church build its corps of Volunteer Ministers, and then went on to do many more things to promote the cause of Scientology Volunteer Ministers world over.   I spent days and nights getting volunteers to help in the aftermath of disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunamis, as well as the more recent Haiti disaster.

For me, 9/11 was a wake-up call.  It was extremely in-my-face demonstration that all was not right in the world.  Obviously the answer to such things is not in fighting, in invading, or in creating a homeland-security-police-state terror patrol to constantly remind people that the terrorists are out-t’getcha.  The answer is to dig out at the roots of the problem of what ails the individual, and make each person better and more able to take responsibility for their environment.

I don’t think I’ve gone a single week since then without applying myself toward helping my fellow man.   What was your 9/11 experience?

Google Questions Answered on Scientology – Episode #1

As this is a personal site with a rather varied set of topics related to Scientology, I get some interesting results in terms of search terms people use to arrive at my site.  Some of them are understandable, others – well, not so much.   But I figured it might be of interest to give a bit more info for some of this week’s top search terms, just to make sure future searchers find what they’re looking for:

“what do scientologists say about earthquakes”

An interesting Google search indeed.  Not sure what “Scientologists say” except for that they happen, and when they do, some tragic results can ensue.  Obviously it’s incumbent upon the science community to be able to better predict them, but in terms of handling the results, Scientologists have been extremely active.  The Scientology Volunteer Ministers blog has info on what our teams are currently doing in Japan as a result of the recent tsunami, and the Scientology VM site has more info on what our volunteers have done in the wake of other disasters. 

“scientology ybor grand opening youtube”

Photos of the Grand Opening of the new Ybor Square Church of Scientology in Tampa are here, and I think the video you’re after of the Grand Opening is right here:

 

“becoming a member of the scientology church”

Well, that’s a fairly easy one.  If you were Googling this because you were wondering why someone might be a Scientologist, I did a fairly detailed write up here.  If you were wondering on what’s involved with being a Scientologist, well, it’s easy enough to just check out some of the free courses in Scientology that are available on-line, apply it and see if it works for you.   If you have any questions, just ask.

 

“difference between ias and able scientology”

The IAS is the International Association of Scientologists – the official membership association of the Scientology religion.  The purpose of the IAS is: “To unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion and Scientologists in all parts of the world, so as to achieve the aims of Scientology as originated by L. Ron Hubbard.”  I wrote more on the IAS here, and you can find out more about the programs that the IAS supports in a nutshell on this video.

ABLE is the Association for Better Living and Education.  In a nutshell, ABLE has the purpose of reversing the social decay that threatens our societies by resolving the worst problems that plague man today — drugs, crime, illiteracy and immorality.  While supported by the actions of many Scientologists and non-Scientologists alike, ABLE is a secular (non-religious) activity, and uses the technologies of L. Ron Hubbard to forward four major areas:

• Narconon International
• Criminon International
• Applied Scholastics International
• The Way to Happiness Foundation International.

You can find out more about each of these areas on their site.  Hope that answers the question!

 

“i’m a scientologist how do i raise my children”

I have a site dedicated to that question.    Let me know if there’s a question on parenting which is not answered on that site, and I’ll take it up!

“church of scientology staff”

There were about 6 different permutations of that search term in the last week.  You can see my take on being on staff in a Scientology organization here.   I know of at least one person who’s now on staff after reading this, so that’s a good thing.  Let me know if you have any questions about being on staff and I’ll answer them. 

“scientology reviews”

Interesting – quite a few searches this week for “Scientology Reviews”.  Well, I’ll certainly give you my review of Scientology.

 

–

Curious to see what the next week turns up in searches!

This is Why I Love Being a Scientologist

This video sums up a lot of why I love being a Scientologist.

 

The anniversary celebration of the International Association of Scientologists was just held in my city this past weekend, and once again I get to mentally review all of the many reasons why I love being active as a Scientologist.  Luckily for me, as well, one of the new videos released at this year’s event (above) sums up a lot of it.

Everyone who’s involved in Scientology is involved for their own reasons. I have mine, as I went through some time noting down for y’all.  But one part I get a huge kick out of – especially around the time of the IAS Anniversary, is to rub elbows with and be reminded of all of the awesome things my Scientologist friends are doing in their day to day lives that just make the place around us a bit better – things that stem from the fact that they, themselves, are drug-free, literate, empowered people who are individually pursuing their goals in life.

Examples?  There’s so many.  But just take people that I’ve had contact with in the last 24 hours: 

One of my friends is just a fantastic example of a Scientology Parent.  She’s got a bunch of wonderful kids, and always is ready to go out of her way to help anyone who needs it.  She also happens to be a Scientology auditor, and you can see in the comments section on this post on Scientology pregnancy assists what some of the people she’s touched have to say.   

I have another bunch of friends who work with our city’s Truth About Drugs campaign.  They’ve been working with our local police to get effective drug education done with area youth to keep them off drugs.  Why are they doing it? Personal gain? Absolutely not – they just simply want to make a safer place for all us to grow up in.

Another of my friends works at The Delphian School, a school which uses L. Ron Hubbard’s study technology to make competent students who can care for their own future lives and future education.   A really fantastic school I must say, and a bunch of really dedicated, good people who work there.

The list really goes on and on. 

Which is why I do really and factually feel privileged to have friends like this, and to be a part of a group like this where, by and large, there are just a ton of people around me who get a real kick out of helping others and making the world around them a better place to live. 

Questions & Answers on Scientology

I was recently contacted on Facebook by a college student curious about my thoughts on Scientology.  I’d normally answer such directly, but as I’ve had a number of other similar questions on Digg, Twitter and other various social media venues, I figured I’d give my best shot at answering these on my blog. 

So, here goes:

So, my first question really is: What is it that Scientology offers that makes it something that you wanted to make a part of your life?

This is a broad, and a pretty personal question.  Not personal meaning “private and touchy” but personal in the sense that my answer to this is likely vastly different from your answer, or the other guy’s answer.   Sort of like asking a catholic why they go to church.

But to answer you, there are a number of things Scientology offers which I like quite a bit.  They are, in no particular order:

• Answers for day-to-day problems in life:  Probably the one thing I like most about Scientology is that I’m very seldom left with lingering questions about things I run into daily in life.  Questions like, “Why did that guy just act that way to me?” or "How can I improve my relationship with my parents?” or “Can I trust that guy?” or “How can I be a better parent?” or anything like that.  In my personal experience, there has not been one question that I haven’t been able to get an answer for in Scientology – and an answer I personally am satisfied with not just one that someone tells me authoritatively and I’m meant to believe or something like that.  So, that’s one thing.
• The Scientology community:  One thing I love about being involved in Scientology is getting to hang around other Scientologists.  By and large, Scientologists are extremely good people, genuine, caring & responsible.   Scientologists I am around are genuinely interested in helping each other, helping the environment they are in, and do really give a crap about important issues that surround them.  So, that’s another thing I really enjoy and which is a real plus about being a Scientologist.
• A reliable long-term path for enhancement:  There’s another thing that I’ve come to enjoy as a Scientologist, which is that as I do various counseling actions in the religion, take various courses, etc – I am steadily handling shortcomings I feel that I have – or enhancing areas of my life that are ok but I would like to be better.  Every time, in Scientology, that I’ve put effort into handling one of these areas – be it communication skill, study speed, my own personal ethics, family, etc – each has been improved with Scientology.  The take-away I get from that is that for the future, I don’t need to be “worried” about getting worse, or about “growing old & dying and I still am [blankety-blank-random-problem]”.  I know for myself that these issues get handled in Scientology, and I can always turn to Scientology for self-improvement.

There’s a lot more I could say on the above, but I hope that gives you a sense of my personal estimation of Scientology. 

Second; how long have you been a Scientologist, and how did you get started?

My parents were Scientologists starting a few years before I was born, but I won’t really say “I was born into it.”   They always made Scientology available to me, and I took my first Scientology courses when I was about 9 years old.  The first course I took was a communication course and I just loved it.  Next thing I knew I was at a summer camp, leading 300+ kids in singing camp songs with no back-off or embarrassment.  So, I was pretty happy that it worked for me, and continued in my studies of the religion since then.  

Third; what do you think of the "Golden Age of Knowledge" program that recently revamped the basic LRH material?

I think it is just outstanding and quite literally one of the most important things that has happened to the religion.   Any religion (I think) can be divided into two compartments – one being the original scripture of the religion, and second being how the religion is practiced at present by its parishioners.  The way I see it, one gets a wider and wider schism between the original scripture, and what people actually practice, when average members of the religion can’t simply read and understand the basic principles of their own religion.  They can start to have a distorted picture of what their religion stands for, a picture that isn’t even remotely close to what the religion factually is. 

As a case in point, take Christianity – a religion I actually have no problem with.  However, the main authoritative scripture used is the “King James Edition” of the bible – one that was authorized a full 1600 years after Christ himself was alive.  Who knows what the actual original scripture was as authored by his disciples, and what their original intentions & beliefs were as to an organized religion & belief system.  It’s a debate that I think could go on for some time amongst scholars, but you won’t know the answer unless you talk to someone who was there. 

So, as such, I think it of vast importance that while original manuscripts, recordings, and such are still available, that the original works and intentions of Mr. Hubbard be fully verified and released – and released with sufficient glossaries and aids so that people can actually read and understand them. 

Only then can one practice Scientology and know that what you’re doing is actually SCIENTOLOGY and not some other agreed-upon, offbeat, wacky, made-up misunderstanding that vaguely resembles Scientology. 

I’ll tell you – as someone who has grown up around Scientology, and around grown-ups and little kids flinging around Scientology words which they have never actually defined, I came up with some pretty strange ideas of what some of the most essential and basic concepts of Scientology were.  Only when I read the Scientology Basics books & listened to the lectures, did I actually realize I was so far from what these basic Scientology concepts actually were.

So, as such, I am utterly grateful for the work that was put into making these materials available.

Fourth; do you believe that Scientology is for everyone? As in, do you believe that any person who approaches it with positive intention can find a place in the Church?

There were two questions there, and in my estimation, there are two answers.  First of all, although I do absolutely believe that anyone can be helped with Scientology – that does not mean by extension “Scientology is for everyone”.  Some people really do not have anything but evil intentions for others, and live to see others harmed.  I don’t think such a person would find anything interesting in Scientology at all.  There are others who are entirely entrenched in their belief system, and who have fixed ideas they are not willing to inspect or change.  Those people will have a hard time with Scientology, too, as Scientology’s whole nature assumes that one will need to take new data, inspect it as to whether it makes sense, and then use it or reject it. 

Now, your second sentence – do I believe that any person who approaches Scientology with positive intentions can find a place in the Church?  Yes, I absolutely believe that.  I think that anyone who intends to make themselves better or make others better can find their place in the Church, whether it is as an active participant, or as someone who simply uses some part of Scientology to integrate with their own religion to make their lives better. 

Fifth; Is there anything more that you wished the Church of Scientology would do to improve or grow?

I have quite a bit I could say on this, but in reality, it comes down to a question of manpower.   There is a tremendous breadth in how much Scientologists and the Church of Scientology take responsibility for, and it is so much more embracive than just “growing membership” or some similar task. 

There is no answer for me like, “Boy, I wish they would change [blank].”   For me, the problems the Church faces in growing come down to:

(a) Problems related to simply informing enough people about Scientology and what it is,
(b) Problems related to elements in the society which, if unhandled, make it impossible for the Church to do its job at all (i.e. drugs, immorality, crime, human rights issues banning religious freedom, etc)  and
(c) Direct attacks on the religion from vested interests who are trying to protect their cash flow (i.e. psychiatry and big pharma and their scams to market medication at every last variation in human behaviour, good or bad)

The Church needs all the help it can get in each of these.

Sixth; where are you on the classification, gradation and awareness chart?

I am a Grade IV completion, and am midst the Professional Metering Course – one which teaches someone how to use an E-Meter.  Let me know if you need clarification on either.

The Code of a Scientologist

(first off – I think I’m going to finish Scientology 0-8 today!  yay!)

The part I’m reading right now is on the Code of a Scientologist.   Originally written in 1954, I’m  looking at the revised version which Mr. Hubbard put out in 1969.

Personally, I think that if anyone new to Scientology, or who has just heard a thing or two about it in the press, were to just read and understand this code, you’d see what we were really all about.

Also see the above video on what Scientologists say about Scientology. It says it all too.