Beyond Belief (10 page)

Once our graphs were completed, the supervisor would ask if anybody wanted to share a win. A win was something you had learned and could now apply. If someone shared a win, everyone clapped. Typically, three or four wins were offered every night. I assumed the purpose of sharing our wins was to show our coursemates that there was a lot to be gained by applying Scientology techniques, and you could have a win, too, if you listened to the Church’s teachings. Conversely, not having wins meant maybe you were doing something wrong or that something was wrong with you.

We always ended each course period the same way, with three cheers to L. Ron Hubbard. The cheer began when we would all turn and face his picture on the wall. Even though LRH had dropped his body, everyone still thought of him as our hero, a man who had cared enough about the human race to help us through his wisdom and technology. It didn’t matter what room we were in; there was a portrait of LRH in every one, including every dormitory. This felt weird, as if he was watching me wherever I went.

The supervisor would then shout, “Hip! Hip!” We’d reply “Hooray!” and then we would clap for a couple of minutes.

After our salute, we would return to our rooms and get ready for bed. I lived in a dorm room with seven girls. We would all take showers at night because there was never enough time in the morning. While waiting for the shower, the sixteen of us who shared it would hang out, chat, and brush our teeth. It was one of the few occasions during the day when we could just talk to our friends, although it was just thirty minutes.

Lights went out at nine-thirty sharp, and the Master-at-Arms would be around to ensure everyone was in bed. The next day, we’d wake up and do it all over again.

O
UR WEEKDAY SCHEDULE WAS THE SAME, WITH THE EXCEPTION
of Thursday afternoons. In Scientology, the week begins and ends on Thursday afternoon at two, and as part of starting a new week, Thursday afternoons were spent on the tedious job of putting together all of our numerical data for the week, so that our supervisors, who were usually kids themselves, could evaluate our progress. We all assembled in the School House at precisely two o’clock for two hours of what we called “Thursday Basics.” This was when we tallied up our daily statistics from the Student Point Slips, made charts to graph them, and reviewed them ourselves to see if we were improving or declining.

Thursday Basics was also when we compiled our weekly statistics for our posts. Every day, we were inspected to make sure we marked our activities on our daily post graphs to reflect what we were accomplishing. In my case as Medical Liaison Officer, that meant that every day I was being evaluated based on how many healthy Cadets I saw.

On Thursdays, I’d tabulate the results from these daily graphs. When I emerged from what felt like a mountain of data and weekly numbers, my graph would indicate whether I was moving in a good direction (up) or a bad direction (down). Based on the direction and slope of the graph’s line, I had a corresponding condition formula, which was supposed to help me determine how I would improve my post statistics; depending on what the formula said, I would have to take different steps the following week in order to improve or maintain my statistics.

Condition formulas didn’t just govern our progress at our posts; they were also integral to evaluating whether we were improving as people. According to LRH, there were twelve conditions or states of well-being that were ranked, and Scientologists were always supposed to be trying to improve their condition, since improving one’s condition would result in increased happiness, prosperity, and survival. Everyone started in a condition of nonexistence and through the steps laid out in a corresponding conditions formula, a person could improve his condition and therefore his state of well-being.

The conditions from best to worst were:

Power

Power change

Affluence

Normal operation

Emergency

Danger

Nonexistence

Liability

Doubt

Enemy

Treason

Confusion

Any condition below nonexistence was considered a lower condition and would be treated with varying degrees of punishment. “Lower Conditions” meant you were on the outs with the group, had done something that violated the mores of the group, and needed to be corrected. There was often humiliation involved in being in lower conditions. You might have only beans and rice to eat or be excluded from org awards or have privileges revoked or reduced. Lower Conditions could also be a form of punishment, so, as part of the atonement for doing something wrong, you’d get lowered in conditions, and then have to work your way up again. Everything from severe backflashing to insubordination or even losing your keys could earn you lower conditions.

As medical liaison, I had to graph my weekly progress on a chart. If I showed improvement in my post, my condition would improve as a result. If tons of kids came in sick, my graph might show a downward trend, which would require me to reverse it by applying the formula for the Condition of Danger. You could also be in different conditions in different aspects of your life. For example, you could be in “doubt” in your finances and “affluence” in your health.

As a seven-year-old girl, tallying and graphing all these numbers seemed ridiculous and unimportant to me. I was not a perfectionist, and the attention to detail was always stifling. Thinking back on it now, it’s hard to believe that we were expected to do this: not only was the analysis of these numbers wearisome; it was also incredibly time-consuming. It forced us to focus just on numbers and the formulas with little thought about what it all meant. We had to look at the results, draw conclusions, and follow the prescribed next steps. All this work with numbers, statistics, and trends was a fundamental warm-up for our adult lives as Scientologists. The more we grew accustomed to having our life be quantifiable every week, the less likely we were to have a problem with it in the future.

Another part of Thursdays was our weekly E-Meter checks, which were different from our E-Meter checks during academic study. During these checks, we’d wait in line together, and then each of us would sit down and hold the cans. Unlike our daily study meters, no questions were asked. The adult meter-checker would simply observe the meter’s needle, and, depending on the needle’s pattern, the reading would either be clean or dirty, pass or flunk. A pass was indicated by a “clean needle” or “floating needle,” when the needle rhythmically swept back and forth. While I would often try to think happy thoughts so that I would pass the check, I wouldn’t know the results until later in the evening when they were announced in front of the group.

If we flunked, we would be required to do an O/W write-up. O/W was short for “Overts and Withholds,” which essentially means sins and secrets. Overts were sins or transgressions, while withholds were secrets, anything we were trying to hide. Essentially, we were writing down confessions. The format was precise: First, we would write down the nature of the transgression; then, we would write down the Time, Place, Form, and Event. We would keep writing until we had told everything and felt better, at which point we would receive another meter check. This second time, we would be asked, “In this O/W write up, has anything been missed?” If we failed again, we had to go back and write more until our needle floated.

During Thursday Basics, we also had to write Weekly Reports for our parents. These were prepared forms with blank spaces for name, date, a spot to show which courses we had completed, whether our stats were up or down, if we had any wins, and anything else we wanted to say. Writing anything negative wasn’t a real option. Adults read the weekly reports before they were sent to Int, so complaints would be discovered and treated as nattering. This was true for not only our Weekly Reports but our letters, whether they were to our friends, family, or parents. Whenever I received a letter from my parents or anyone, it had already been opened and stapled closed. This happened to other children at the Ranch as well. I didn’t know what the purpose of monitoring our correspondence was. Perhaps it allowed the adults to make sure we weren’t enturbulating our parents, who were very busy with their work. “Enturbulating” was a Scientology word for disrupting or upsetting. So, in addition to not being allowed to complain at the Ranch out loud, we couldn’t complain about it in letters, either.

Friday evening had a different routine. After dinner, we would have graduation, where kids would be given certificates for the courses they had completed. Graduation would begin with all of us gathering in either the mess hall or the lounge for a Scientology media presentation. Sometimes this was a Scientology music video, but more often it was the Sea Org recruitment slide show. Inevitably, the show would have images of people in uniforms, some of them our parents, along with awesome background music and catchy slogans such as, “Many are called; few are chosen.”

Almost every week, there was a showing of LRH’s “Mission into Time.” It featured L. Ron Hubbard recalling his past lives going back hundreds of years and chronicling his journey to connect with those past lives. From only his own recall of these past lives, he named locations around the world where, in these previous lives, he had buried various unknown items. The slide show then told the story of the first Sea Org members, who had taken on the mission of traveling to these locations in search of the items. They went by boat around the world, and sure enough, they found them all. Watching the slide show gave me goose bumps every time.

After the slide show, kids who had finished courses would receive certificates and be applauded. Then there would be awards such as “Student of the Week,” “Cadet of the Week,” and “Division of the Week.” Graduation ended with clapping to the picture of LRH and three cheers to him as well.

The best part came after graduation, when we got our five-dollar allowance. We had to sign for it, because we had to have our deductions taken for Social Security and Medicare, so it was more like $4.50. There were also deductions taken for collections toward adult and executive birthday presents for anyone celebrating that week. If overall Cadet Org stats were up, we would sometimes have org awards, which meant we could all watch a movie and have popcorn before bed, or maybe even take a field trip. And, when it was all over, we’d head back to our rooms to prepare for bed.

Saturday was a no-school day, but we still had to do deck work, which on Saturdays was intense white-glove cleaning of our berthings and the buildings. My assignment was the School House. In spite of the intense cleaning, I liked Saturdays because we were going to be seeing our parents, and Saturday night dinner was now the only time we got dessert—usually chocolate-chip cookies. By the time white-gloving and inspection were done, it was about ten in the evening. It was tiring, but leaving for the relative luxury of my parents’ apartment was worth working for.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

RUNAWAY

W
ITH ALL THE WORK BEING DONE, THE
R
ANCH SLOWLY BECAME
a more and more beautiful place. The roads were paved, and the houses were uniformly painted a barn-red color with white trim. There were gardens, tree nurseries with pomegranates and apples, beautiful stone walls bordering the property, lush ice plants covering the hills, and freshly mowed sports fields. Eventually, it was hardly recognizable as the arid dusty earth that it had been when I arrived. At first glance, it was easy to see how someone might have thought this was an appealing place for children to grow up, almost like a sort of permanent summer camp. For me, though, it was hard to appreciate the improvements after all my effort.

I no longer enjoyed being at the Ranch or being a Cadet. The deck work routine felt unbearable, the course work overwhelming. While the physical labor took its toll, what really stressed me was that we were expected to have the minds of adults. With all of the procedures, information, and responsibilities that filled our heads on a daily basis, there was little or no room for the imagination and whims. It’s difficult to understand how, as kids, we possessed the mental capacity to keep track of multiple sets of daily and weekly statistics, identify trends in that data, and then strategize how to improve the statistics by applying complex formulas and writing daily battle plans to achieve our goals. Whether it was being required to sign out for tools or the fact that every dining room table had its own hierarchy of mess president, treasurer, and steward, every process was rigid and bureaucratic. Cleaning had to be done in a specified manner, which LRH had laid out in “The Cleaning Course.” It had policies on exactly how windows and brass must be cleaned, as well as the exact sequence for cleaning a room. Every day, our beds were inspected to make sure we had proper hospital corners, which we all learned to do in a “how to make a bed” course. Even riding a bike required us to pass a course first.

In addition to this tedium and minutiae, we had at least three areas that we were responsible for cleaning on a daily basis. In the event of fire, intruder, or earthquake, we all had an assigned duty, which ranged from damage control to evacuators, and we were drilled and timed thoroughly every week on these duties.